Air Travel Hacking: Understanding and (Ab)Using the Global Distribution System

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Presented at HITBMalaysia 2011 by

Hendrik Scholz

In the recent years air travel has become a commodity and generally cheaper thanks to good acess to booking engines over the internet. This presentation introduces the attendees to basics of air travel booking systems. The main part is spent on showing shortcomings of the online systems. A more direct access to the booking systems thanks to the Internet allows to search for programming errors and mistakes alike which can be abused for cheaper or better travel. Numerous problem sources in the Global Distribution Systems (which are the backbone of air travel bookings) are outlined and a few ways to exploit these are shown, namely the ‘fuel dump’ concept which effectivly removes some of the surcharges which make up a major part of the ticket price. Attendees will gain enough insights to start searching for their own ‘error fares’ and get involved in the fare searching community.