Patent ID: 8005695

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, for determining multiple routes for multiple passenger groups, the method executed over a computer network, the method comprising: sending, by a computer to a scheduler computer system that produces itineraries as combinations of flights, in response to travel planning queries, multiple, individual travel planning queries each query including an origin and a destination with a bias produced by the computer based on the multiple, individual travel planning queries and a preference/requirement, to bias the scheduler computer system to produce individual itinerary solutions that meet joint travel requirements for at least two multiple passenger groups with different origins or different destinations to share flights for some portion of a trip segment, with the bias provided to cause the scheduler to initially generate, for at least one of the individual queries, individual itinerary solutions that have intermediate stops that coincide with an origin or destination of at least another one of the individual queries for another one of the multiple passenger groups; receiving from the scheduler computer system, individual itinerary solutions; merging, by the computer, the individual itinerary solutions that include itineraries with intermediate stops for at least some of the multiple passenger groups produced from the multiple individual queries with merging being in accordance with those individual itinerary solutions that include common intermediate stops to produce a list of joint itinerary solutions for the passenger groups; returning the joint itinerary solutions for display on a user interface.