How do travel agencies or airline companies make flight reservations?

Question

i have been looking for the answer online but can someone help me please!How does a travel agency make a flight reservation???

Answer 1

Most, if not all use something called a GDS or global distribution system.  This is basically a computer networked linked to all of the major and most of the minor airlines.  

Once you decide on a flight, they just enter your information.  One advantage of an agent is they can put a short term hold on a seat in many cases through this system, but the fare cannot be guaranteed until paid.

Answer 2

Well, I'm not sure exactly what you're really asking, but I'll guess and answer that.

MANY years ago, airline reservation centers were big big rooms with the walls covered with whatn were essentially ballpark scoreboards. Not Jumbotron, not LEDs, but completely mechanical ones updated with a long stick or by running up a ladder. When you called, or your travel agent called, the airline agent would look up at the right "scoreboard" to see how many seats were available for that flight on that date. If the requested seats were available, they signaled for a runner to take the update to the scoreboard, reducing the inventory by n seats.

Separately, the agent wrote the passenger name(s), origin, destination, flights, and dates down on a card (the Passenger Name Record, with the term "PNR" surviving to this day) which eventually went to other clerks who prepared the passenger manifests for each flight, and so on.

It's actually about the same in concept, still, but the walls of scoreboard and the cards all happen inside computers. But when a customer wants to go from LAX to JFK on a certain date, the airline reservation system identifies what flights or flight combinations exist , then checks for available inventory (seats) on those flights on those dates.