American Airlines Booking Systems: The Evolution Before Reservisor

In the 1930s, the aviation industry was entering a period of unprecedented growth. Under the leadership of C. R. Smith, who became president of American Airlines in 1934, the company adopted an aggressive expansion strategy. Smith envisioned a future where the fleet would grow from 85 planes to a thousand, demanding that his management team eliminate any inefficiencies that could hinder this rapid scaling.

This drive for efficiency led Marion Sadler, manager of customer support, and Bill Hogan, the finance lead, to identify a critical bottleneck: the company was spending excessive resources on accounting rather than solving the logistical challenges of booking flight times. To address this, they hired Charles Amman to analyze and optimize the booking process.

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The Mechanics of Early Flight Bookings

Charles Amman identified that the booking process consisted of three primary steps: determining seat availability, updating the seating inventory (whether through a purchase or a cancellation), and recording passenger details such as name and address.

The Request and Reply System

Initially, American Airlines utilized a method known as request and reply. In this system, booking data for specific routes—such as Buffalo to Boston—was managed by a single dedicated office. These offices were typically located at the involved airports, though they were increasingly moved to major hubs or telephone company switching offices to simplify the management of phone lines.

The process was entirely manual. Each scheduled flight was represented by a physical flight card stored in a filing cabinet. When a sales agent needed to book a ticket, the workflow was as follows:

• The sales agent called the central booking office.
• The booking agent walked to the filing cabinet to retrieve the specific flight card.
• The booking agent returned to the phone to confirm availability.
• If a seat was available, the agent checked a box on the card and returned it to the cabinet.

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Operational Bottlenecks and Inefficiencies

The request and reply system functioned adequately until flights approached full capacity. When a flight was nearly full, the process became cumbersome. If no seats were available, the sales agent had to ask the customer for alternative flights, requiring the booking agent to return to the cabinets repeatedly to check different flight cards.

Because multiple booking agents often needed access to the same cards, a strict rule prevented any agent from taking more than one card at a time. During peak periods, these manual constraints could stretch the booking process indefinitely, creating a significant barrier to the company's expansion goals.

The Transition to Sell and Report

In 1939, Charles Amman implemented a new strategy called sell and report. This system was designed to reduce the volume of phone calls and reporting needs by decentralizing the initial booking phase.

Under this system, any office could book seats independently without contacting the central office, provided the flight was less than 75% full. To track this, offices used a board of future flights where each flight was represented by a hole. Once a flight reached the 75% occupancy threshold, a large peg was inserted into the hole. Booking agents monitored these boards—sometimes using binoculars—to know when to switch back to the centralized request and reply system.

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Since aircraft in that era rarely reached 75% capacity, the sell and report system dramatically reduced the number of necessary phone calls. However, it did not solve the underlying issues that occurred once a flight hit the 75% mark, nor did it simplify the process of finding alternative flights for customers.

Key Facts

• C. R. Smith led American Airlines starting in 1934 with a goal of expanding the fleet to 1,000 planes.
• The request and reply system relied on physical flight cards and centralized phone communication.
• Charles Amman was hired to streamline the three-step process of availability checking, inventory updating, and data recording.
• The sell and report system (1939) allowed decentralized booking until 75% of seats were sold.
• Visual cues, such as large pegs on a board, were used to signal when a flight had reached the 75% capacity threshold.

Feature	Request and Reply	Sell and Report
Control	Centralized (Single Office)	Decentralized (until 75% full)
Primary Tool	Physical Flight Cards	Flight Boards with Pegs
Communication	High volume of phone calls	Reduced phone calls
Efficiency	Slow during peak periods	Faster for low-occupancy flights

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was responsible for improving the booking process at American Airlines?

Charles Amman was hired by Marion Sadler and Bill Hogan to study and resolve the inefficiencies in the booking and accounting processes.

How did the request and reply system work?

A sales agent would call a central office, where a booking agent would manually retrieve a physical flight card from a cabinet to check for seat availability before updating the card and returning it.

What was the purpose of the sell and report system?

Implemented in 1939, it aimed to reduce the number of phone calls to the central office by allowing local offices to book seats independently until the flight reached 75% capacity.

How did agents know when a flight reached 75% capacity under the sell and report system?

They used a board where each flight had a hole; once the 75% threshold was met, a large peg was inserted into the hole, which agents could see (sometimes using binoculars).

What remained a problem after the implementation of sell and report?

The system did not resolve the difficulties encountered once a flight reached 75% capacity, nor did it provide an efficient way to find alternative flights for passengers.