Technique for Producing Constructed Fares

Abstract

A technique for producing constructed fares that include an arbitrary added to a published fare is described. The techniques determine interior cities that appear with gateway cities in arbitraries for the airline and searches for gateway cities corresponding to the determined interior cities appearing in the arbitraries. The technique applies an arbitrary corresponding to one of the interior cities to a published fare involving one of the gateway cities to produce the constructed fare.

1 . A method of producing constructed fares that includes an arbitrary added to a published fare, said method executed in a computer system, the method comprising:
 determining interior cities that appear with gateway cities in arbitraries for the airline;   searching for gateway cities corresponding to the determined interior cities appearing in the arbitraries; and   applying an arbitrary corresponding to one of the interior cities to a published fare involving one of the gateway cities to produce the constructed fare.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein determining interior cities comprises:
 accessing a hash table by an airline, interior-city pair to return a list of gateway cities for which an airline has arbitraries that specify the interior city. 
 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  wherein accessing a hash table returns the list in constant time. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein searching for gateway cities comprises:
 accessing a hash table by an airline, gateway pair to return a list of gateway cities that an airline publishes fares from the determined gateway to another gateway city. 
 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein determining interior cities comprises:
 accessing a first hash table by an airline, interior-city pair to return a list of gateway cities for which an airline has arbitraries that specify the interior city; and 
 wherein searching for gateway cities comprises:
 accessing a second hash table by an airline, gateway pair to return a second list of gateway cities that an airline publishes fares from the determined gateway to another gateway city. 
 
 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein accessing the first and second hash table returns the lists in constant time. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  wherein applying arbitraries further comprises:
 evaluating records from fare construction tables to determine whether the constructed fare is a valid constructed fare. 
 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the method is conditioned to allow any one or more of an airline code, interior city a first gateway city a second gateway city, or fare-basis to vary. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 7  wherein testing entries further comprises:
 determining if an entry in a construction table was memoized before accessing the construction table; and 
 if the entry was memoized, retrieving an answer from a store of memoized entries to apply to the constructed fare. 
 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the constructed fare is a two component constructed fare. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining a second set of interior cities that appear with a second gateway city in the published fare for the airline; applying a second interior city from the second set of interior cites to the constructed fare to produce a three component constructed fare.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the method is performed over all determined interior cities and all gateways. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the method is performed over all airlines. 
     
     
         14 . A method of producing a set of constructed international fares for an airline, the method executed in a computer system and the method comprising:
 determining interior cities that appear with gateway cities in arbitraries for the airline;   searching for gateway cities corresponding to the determined interior cities appearing in the arbitraries; and   applying each arbitrary corresponding to each of the determined interior cities to published fares involving the gateway cities to produce the set of constructed fares.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14  wherein the set of constructed fares are two component constructed fares. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 14  further comprising:
 determining a second set of interior cities that appear with second gateway cities in the published fares. 
 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the set of constructed fares is a first set of constructed fares and the method further comprises:
 applying each arbitrary corresponding to each of the determined second set of interior cities to the first set of constructed fares to produce a second set of constructed fares. 
 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 14  wherein the first set of constructed fares are two component constructed fares and the second set of constructed fares are three component constructed fares. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 14  further comprising:
 evaluating entries in fare construction tables to determine whether constructed fares in the set of constructed fares are valid constructed fares; and 
 returning the valid constructed fares as the set of constructed fares. 
 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 19  wherein evaluating entries further comprises:
 determining if an entry in a fare construction table was memoized before accessing the fare construction table; and 
 if the entry was memoized, retrieving an answer from a store of memoized entries to apply to the constructed fare. 
 
     
     
         21 .- 51 . (canceled)