Airline Booking Simulation

Introduction

The general purpose programs, such as word processors and spreadsheets, that are available today, are amazingly powerful and offer me, as a teacher of IT/Computing, very good value for money. There are also some outstanding CD-ROM resources and a variety of material for different curricular areas. Surprisingly perhaps, there is however, a lack of material focused on specific areas of the IT curriculum. Much of the theory work that pupils have to cover, has to be done purely by discussion and book work. It would be so much better if you could link the theoretical work with practical exercises. With this thought in mind, I decided to try and write some simulations to back up the work done on computer applications.

The Concept

Booking systems, for theatres, sports stadiums, cinemas, airlines, etc. form a prominent part of GCSE applications studies, so I decided to start with an airline booking simulation. I wanted something that would allow pupils to go through the process of making bookings under conditions that were as realistic as possible. For example, seats should be hardest to find during peak periods and all flights should be filling up as the simulation progresses. I also wanted something that could be built into a reasonable module of work, to repay the time it would take to develop the program.

Applications for Teachers 1 - Airline Booking

This program is about a fictional company, EuroAir, which flies 90 seater jets between several European cities. The seating configuration of 30 business class and 60 economy class seats was taken from a diagram of a Canadian Airlines Boeing 737-300 aircraft.

To limit the size and complexity of the program, the simulation only allows bookings to be taken for the month of December. At the beginning, the number of seats left on each flight is set by a random number generator, although flights close to the current date and those at peak times are weighted more highly and are therefore likely to be more full. Seats continue to fill as time passes.

The main part of the program is the data entry screen, where passenger and flight details can be entered. Various screens of relevant information, such as the routes flown, cities served and their airports and a calendar, can be made to pop up on the screen, by pressing the relevant function key.

The module of work that I devised to go with the program is sequenced as follows.

1. (1 lesson, 40 mins) Briefly show the program to the pupils, then leave them to discover how to make a successful booking. All the information they need is contained within the program and they are encouraged to explore it and to find out for themselves.

2. (1-2 lessons) Look at how data entry pre-processes and validates data, with the pupils. For example, when entering an airport code, the program will only accept a code for an airport that EuroAir services. When making a return flight booking, the return date must be on the same day or later, than the outward flight. These are examples of validation. When entering a clients name, if you type

   j. m. smith

   the program will change that to

   J M Smith

   converting to the correct capitalisation and removing the full stops and the multiple spaces between "m." and "smith".

   This is an example of the pre-processing of the data. Pupils must then find and write up as many examples of pre-processing and validation as they can.

3. (1-2 lessons) Give out a question sheet which follows up the initial exploration and ensures that pupils understand the key aspects of the program and the way that information is presented. For example, the question sheet asks about where EuroAir flies and on which days, what certain fares are (which requires the booking procedure to be used) and looks at various aspects of the booking process.

4. (2 lessons) Give out a booking exercise. The one I use contains 15 clients with a variety of needs. The pupils must first prioritise the clients, with those whose needs might be the most difficult to meet, being dealt with first. They then attempt to make appropriate bookings, and the exercise has to be completed at a single sitting. When they have finished, the program gives them a score, depending on how closely they have met the needs of the clients. Their bookings and score can then be printed out and stuck into their books/folders, as can a sample ticket. This exercise doubles as a language exercise, as the pupils must interpret what is required in the way of a flight booking, from the description given. If a given flight is full, they may be able to try alternatives, according to the needs of the client.

In Conclusion

Software: Applications for Teachers 1 - Airline Booking