Long Connection allows customers to request long connection schedules in the shopping response as follows:

• Allows you to define both minimum and maximum connection times in the Long Connection request.
• Allows you to retrieve up to three segment connections in a single leg.
• Allows you to request Long Connections for both international and U.S. domestic itineraries, which closes the gap so that no time interval will be missed in schedules processing.

Understanding LongConnect

• Minimum connection time, as defined by airports and carriers, is enforced on all connections within a leg of a journey.
• A long connection itinerary is an itinerary with long connection on any of the legs.
• Not applicable to Exchange Shopping and Calendar Shopping.
• The standard schedules call will capture connections up to 780 minutes; the long connection schedules call will capture connections from 780 minutes (default) to 1439 minutes, expanding the range of connections in the result set.
• The long connection schedules have a default minimum connection time of 780 minutes (13 hours). The default value of the minimum connection time can be overridden via an attribute in the XML request.

• The long connection schedules have a maximum connection time of 1439 minutes (just up to 24 hours).

Specifying LongConnect Values

Schedules Call	Default Minimum Connection Time (minutes)	Maximum Connection Time (minutes)
Standard schedules call	Official Minimum Connection Time (MCT)	780
Long connection schedules call	780	1439

 

LongConnectTime example

<OTA_AirLowFareSearchRQ>
...
	<TravelPreferences>
		<TPA_Extensions>
			<LongConnectTime Min="720" Max="1200"/>
		</TPA_Extensions>
	</TravelPreferences>
...
</OTA_AirLowFareSearchRQ>

 

LongConnectPoints example

LongConnectPoints provides the following:

• You can define the exact number of connections that you want to receive for the Long Connects.
• The value of LongConnectPoints Min and Max will be within the range of 1 through 3; otherwise, the Long Connect request will not be processed.
• The maximum value for maximum number of connections is “3.” When you specify Min=”1” and Max=”3” Long Connect, up to 3 connection points/4 segment connections will be returned. This will result in 2, 3, and 4 segments connections being returned.
• If you want to restrict to 3 connections only, specify Min=”3” and Max=”3” in the request. This will result in 4 segment connections being returned.
• When you do not specify any minimum nor maximum, the default value for system is “1” (meaning that 2 segment connections are requested).

<OTA_AirLowFareSearchRQ>
...
	<TravelPreferences>
		<TPA_Extensions>
			<LongConnectPoints Min="2" Max="3"/>
		</TPA_Extensions>
	</TravelPreferences>
...
</OTA_AirLowFareSearchRQ>