Neeleman: 1990s airlines lacked relational databases and real-time reservation data
David Neeleman · JetBlue Airways: David Neeleman · Feb 4, 2019 · at 35:16
JetBlue founder David Neeleman explains the airline industry's antiquated ticketing technology in the mid-1990s prior to the creation of Open Skies.
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“Airlines had these big mainframe computer systems they were using at the time, and everything was done on a flat file. So there was no relational databases. The actual, the database was actually the ticket. So if you lost your ticket, and, you know, it became a negotiable document, And they didn't have any other way of tracking anything. And then they would look at things in the rearview mirror that happened three or four months ago. They had no forward-looking ability at the time.”
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