What is your specific use case? I used to work managing API's for one of the GDS companies
For screen scraping, there are a number of companies that do this already for multiple carriers. I'd suggest making use of one of these rather than reinventing the wheel. Example: http://xmldocs.travelfusion.com
My project definitely isn't applicable because it requires caching prices, I don't remember why we were declined access for our other teams/products though. I would have to ask them, as it's been a while.
About screen scraping, I guess it depends on how quick you are at writing scraping scripts (and if you find it fun). I could probably write one faster than I could register for that API. You're also adding a layer between you and the prices. You don't know how long Travelfusion has cached these prices for, while it's simple to write a script that opens the real booking engine to get correct prices. I typically only run mine when I'm ready to purchase a ticket, but don't know which dates, rather than running it constantly to find deals.
And if I were doing anything more than a few routes on a few carriers, I definitely would use a real API instead of reinventing the wheel. In this case I just think it's kinda fun.
Or you could start using a good travel agent, as they would do these things for you.
Is this a good time investment for you? You have a choice on what you spend your time on. You could install your own plumbing, write your own t's and c's etc. or you could pay someone to do it.
You don't need a travel agent for that, just use skyscanner or something. The case where a TA adds value is something like: 'I am going from Australia to Canada for work, and I need to visit a bunch of small towns that are only served by regional airlines, and I need to be there on these exact dates.'
The travel industry is plagued by Trip planning startups that don't make it. I would have thought one of these might have open-sourced their code before.
I couldn't find any open source projects when I looked before I started the project. It's a good point that the internet is filled with trip planning software. I found many web apps but I didn't love any of them. Hopefully this will bring us a closer to a trip planning webapp that actually works.
Car make / model - there's only a finite set of these. Take a look at the categories on Autotrader or something similar.
Tire Sizes - ask your local mechanic how they would find this out? There's probably a catalogue they would use.
I have no idea what size the tires on my car are. But I do know the make, model (and year) of my car. I'd rather enter these details into the size, and the site could tell me what tyre size is recommended, and as part of that do a search for the prices.
Also, a bit of trivia: AA invented Sabre. Sabre can actually trace itself back to AA's first attempts at using computerized business process automation in the 1950s, before it was spun off into a separate company in 2000.
A really interesting book I read about this is Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger Jr. This contains more than just a history of Sabre. I read it more because I work in the travel industry ;-)
The reality is much more complex than that. There are numerous systems at AA for booking, reservation, ground ops, flight ops, airport integration, etc.... Many of these interact with SABRE, many of them are layered on top of each other but some only partially. Quite frankly it's pretty scary over there.
Isn't there an opportunity to consolidate what the IT needs really are with the US Airways merger?
"Integration costs" can be allocated to supporting what the business actually needs, and in the long-term there will be a cost saving. I appreciate the reality is not so straightforward.
US Airways uses SABRE as well, but let's just say your completely rational idea were to be adopted. The simple fact is they cannot execute. See my other comments.
Yes, you're right. Hosting has a different meaning in the software industry - the correct term is 'Airline reservations system' but the colloquial term used in the travel industry is 'airline hosting'.
Keep the pricing message simple. I'm not a fan of variable pricing - I like to know what the monthly cost is going to be beforehand. I appreciate tiers where I can see what I'm going to hit depending on growth over time.
Someone below said that you should base your pricing on cost - I completely disagree. You should absolutely NOT look at cost when you put pricing together - rather, you need to ask your customers about the value of what it is you're providing. For example, Heap will be saving the time and hassle of deploying a generic solution on a server and the time of customising it. Plus Heap will be improving their product every day whereas the self-hosted version would need a developer to add new features. These sort of things all add up - you'll be surprised what you find out when you ask your customers.
Pricing is hard. There are a lot of good articles and discussions on HN if you do a bit of searching.
I'm not saying that Heap have got the pricing right but you should absolutely NOT look at cost when you put pricing together - rather, you need to ask your customers about the value of what it is you're providing. For example, Heap will be saving the time and hassle of deploying a generic solution on a server and the time of customising it. Plus Heap will be improving their product every day whereas the self-hosted version would need a developer to add new features. These sort of things all add up - you'll be surprised what you find out when you ask your customers.
Pricing is hard. There are a lot of good articles and discussions on HN if you do a bit of searching.
This is a design concept submitted to for the 2012 James Dyson Awards. Unfortunately this design takes up more floorspace than the existing cabin layout, so they would need to iterate on the design before an airline will consider it.
For screen scraping, there are a number of companies that do this already for multiple carriers. I'd suggest making use of one of these rather than reinventing the wheel. Example: http://xmldocs.travelfusion.com