Airline Lingo2

Flight Coupon

Each portion of a ticket that allows the passenger to board a certain flight.

GDS

Global Distribution Systems : the booking engine for all agencies and online booking tools. See also CRS

PAT

Passenger Air Tariff : travel agent manual for air fare ticketing.

Short Haul

Shorter flights, both in terms of distance and duration.

VOL

The abbreviated form of Voluntary denied boarding, refers to passengers who volunteer to take a later flight due to an oversold flight situation (and are compensated for doing so).

Stopover

A planned stop of at least one night (or more than 4 hours domestically), and then continuing the next part of a flight itinerary.

Itinerary

A list of flights that a passenger is scheduled to take.

APEX Fare

Restrictive tickets with refund penalties, to be issued within 24 hrs of reservation and minimum 7 or 14 or 21 days before departure (depending on the ticketing rules)

Code Share

Flight commercially operated by different airlines. Mostly used in the 'hub-and-spoke' model.

NOOP

The abbreviated form for Not Operating, used in computer reservations systems. In other words, the flight is not operating because it has been removed from the airline's schedule, or has been canceled.

Landing Fee

A fee that the airlines pay for the right to land at an airport.

Layover

Usually an overnight stop during the flight portion of a trip, involving a change of airplanes or another form of transportation.

Joint Fare

An agreement between certain airlines to charge specific fares when a passenger uses more than one airline.

Jet Lag

The tired, often disorienting way a passenger feels after traveling through many time zones in a short amount of time.

PNR

Passenger Name Record : Reservation file in the CRS or in the airline computer, always consisting of 6 alfanumeric characters

Superpex

Restrictive tickets with refund penalties, usually specific to one airline, to be issued within 24 hrs of reservation

INVOL

The abbreviated form of Involuntary denied boarding. Refers to passengers who do not volunteer to take a later flight due to an oversold flight situation, but are forced to take a later flight.

FIM

Abbreviated form of Flight Interruption Manifest. FIMs are flight coupons that are given to passengers when some change in their flight itineraries has occurred at the airport.

HK

the most frequently used codes to indicate confirmed space on a flight, used in computer reservations systems.

Blackout dates

Some fares do not allow travel on certain dates (usually around holidays).

On-line Connections:

This is when you change an aircraft but continue to fly with the same carrier. So if youre flying form Los Angeles to New York on American Airlines. If you make a stop for example in Denver, you will change planes at that airport, but with the same American Airline carrier.

Connecting Flight:

When youre on this type of service flight, now this is treated differently than the other services above. With this type of flight the plane travels from one city to another, however, the passengers must change aircrafts at some point between the origin city and the destination city.

Interline Connection:

This is when you as a passenger changes airplanes, but instead of boarding the same company plane you will be on a different airline. For this example, youre flying from Seattle, Washington en route to San Antonio, Texas. If you were on a United flight, you will have a stop in a city in-between your origin and destination, and let say you have to get on an American carrier to continue your journey. The main reason for this is that the particular airline company may not be flying into certain cities due to particular business reasons, so then they share with competing airline business companies.

TOD

Ticket on Departure - With TOD, a travel agent will request a specified airline to issue at ticket which will be picked up by a client in another location/city. Airlines charge a special fee for this extra service.

Transaction Fee

Pricing model whereby the client pays a fee per transaction, receiving nevertheless the commission from the agency

Endorsable (ticket)

The ticket can be transferred to another airline

Connecting Carrier

A carrier to whose services a passenger is transferred for onward connecting transportation

Allowance

Usually, the amount of baggage which may be carried without payment of a charge in addition to the fare. Online flight booking