Digital Connect offers an enhancement in calendar to shop for flexible dates by showing the 30-Day Calendar. It returns the lowest branded, combinable fare for each date. These fares are available for selection on the flight selection process. This enhancement also shows a round-trip fare with an indicator about the return option that was used for pricing.

The calendar provides either seven (7), fifteen (15), or thirty-one (31) days for outbound travel based on a flexibility indicator set by the airline. Each outbound date can be coordinated with an inbound date within plus or minus the tolerance range. This allows the lowest round-trip fare to be returned and provides the traveler with additional return options.

The below table reflects the flexibility rules for 1st and 2nd request for both outbound (OB) and inbound (IB) dates.

This functionality applies to The Revenue Flow (B2C).

The Return Date Disclosure

The Flexible Calendar displays the full allowed flexibility range, which is configurable.

The customer selects the outbound date (e.g., July 16) and the inbound date (e.g., July 26), and if:

• the flexibility range configuration value is +/- fifteen (15) days
• the inbound date is below the outbound date range

The outbound date is the last day of the search range of the outbound date (July 31).

Short Trips

Currently in Digital Connect, Calendar 30 performs search symmetrically, therefore, in case of short trips (e.g. OB date June 20, IB date June 21) the search returns past dates as well. The Flexible Calendar does not allow a customer to search for a flight backwards and extends the search range asymmetrically.

Digital Connect supports shopping by itinerary part and supports flight promotions by itinerary part.

The Flexible Calendar enables shopping for:

• bundled offers with bundled offers price display with discounts
• unbundled offers with unbundled prices while displaying discounts
• unbundled offers with bundled prices while not displaying discounts

Prerequisites

• Flexible calendar must be configured

Highlights

One of the current calendar flight search solutions in Digital Connect is 30 Day Calendar. This functionality combines several outbound offers with one inbound offer only. If, for any reason, the inbound offer is not available, the functionality returns no available flights for the whole month. Such result is problematic as it is not true.

The other solution is search using NxN or NxM Calendar Matrix display which is designed to get the full combination of both outbound and inbound offers. Presently, delivering the 30x30 option is highly inefficient and impractical, therefore, the currently available modes are 5x5 and 7x7.

The Flexible Calendar solution balances the advantages of the previous two. If a customer selects an inbound offer that is unavailable, Flexible Calendar returns other options. The functionality combines several outbound dates with lowest fare inbound dates from within the tolerance range. The displayed prices are bundled, which counteracts any price jump effects, and so, the customer’s confusion. As a result, the customer chooses outbound date based on total trip prices.