Patent ID: 9639842
Date: 2017-05-02
CPC Classifications: G06Q

Claim:
1. An apparatus for automatically, and simultaneously, assigning respective optimized alternative itineraries to a plurality of airline passenger name records associated with an airline, each of the airline passenger name records having a quantity of airline travelers and an original itinerary, the original itinerary having an initial origin, an initial departure time from the initial origin, a final destination, and a final arrival time to the final destination, the apparatus comprising: a computer travel reservation system; one or more servers, the one or more servers comprising: at least one processor; and a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions executable with the at least one processor, wherein the one or more servers are adapted to access, from the computer travel reservation system, data associated with the airline passenger name records; a gateway through which the one or more servers are adapted to access from the computer travel reservation system the data associated with the airline passenger name records; and a database accessible by the one or more servers; wherein the plurality of instructions are executed with the at least one processor so that the following steps are executed: accessing, from the computer travel reservation system and through the gateway, the data associated with the airline passenger name records; parsing the data associated with the airline passenger name records to extract relevant travel information; storing the relevant travel information in the database; generating, using the relevant travel information, one or more candidate alternative itineraries for each of the airline passenger name records in the plurality of airline passenger name records, wherein generating the one or more candidate alternative itineraries for each of the airline passenger name records comprises: classifying each of the airline travelers in each of the passenger name records into groups belonging to a first class of groups, classifying each of the airline travelers in each of the passenger name records into groups belonging to a second class of groups, solving, for the first class of groups, a mixed integer program to generate a first set of feasible solutions having respective objective function values and determine, from the first set of feasible solutions, the feasible solution having the minimum objective function value; solving, for the second class of groups, the mixed integer program to generate a second set of feasible solutions having respective objective function values and determine, from the second set of feasible solutions, the feasible solution having the minimum objective function value; assigning the respective optimized alternative itineraries to the plurality of airline passenger name records associated with the airline; returning a result to a Java Message Service (JMS) out queue, the result comprising the simultaneous assignment of the respective optimized alternative itineraries to the plurality of airline passenger name records; and outputting the result in XML format, wherein outputting the result in XML format comprises sending or more messages from the JMS out queue to a WebService.