Air Availability can be modified to return available flights for a specified time or time range.
Note: Shopping by date ranges is not currently offered in Air Availability, but is available in Low Fare Shopping.
Schema
Located in Air.xsd:
Request
In addition to the required data for an Air Availability request, time ranges for departures or arrivals are specified, respectively, in the SeachDepTime and SearchArvTime children of the AvailabilitySearchRequest/SearchAirLeg in the Air service.
Searching by Departure Time
Within SearchDepTime, the specific time can be modified to include time ranges. Date and time formats use the ISO-standard format.
SpecificTime indicates the preferred time for the departure or arrival. If this value is blank, the default preferred time is 8:00. There is no default date for the request; a date must always be included in the request.
TimeRange is used to indicate a time window around the preferred departure or arrival time. By default, the time window is set to the departure time.
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EarliestTime indicates the earliest time in a window around the preferred time. If this value is blank, the default earliest time is two hours before the preferred time.
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LatestTime indicates the latest time in a window around the preferred time. If this value is blank, the default latest time is 23:59.
A request can be for an entire day from one minute after midnight to one minute before midnight. However, all requests must occur within the same date and cannot cross over into the next day.
If the PreferredTime attribute is included, the response returns options weighted for the preferred time, if they are available. PreferredTime can be used alone or in combination with TimeRange. For example:
If a departure time range has EarliestTime is set to '0800', LatestTime is set to '1200', and PreferredTime is set to '0900', the traveler is requesting available flights that depart between 8:00 and 12:00, but prefers flights that leave at 9:00.
SearchExtraDays, which supports date ranges, is not currently offered in Air Availability, but is available in Low Fare Shopping.
Searching by Arrival Time
SearchArvTime repeats the same data formats based on arrival times for a leg rather than departure times. Either a departure or arrival time can be selected; both departure and arrival cannot be selected in a single call.
Response
A standard Air Availability response is returned with the flight options restricted to the ranges specified in the parameters.
If the provider or supplier does not support time range functionality, a warning string is returned.
Exceptions
ACH
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ACH suppliers do not support time ranges. An error is returned if a time range is included in the request.
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ACH suppliers do not support search by arrival date.
Galileo
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Galileo supports a range for either departure OR arrival times, but does not support ranges for both departure AND arrival in the same request.
Worldspan
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Worldspan does not support Preferred and Specific Time simultaneously. If both modifiers are present in the request, Preferred Time is processed and Specific Time is ignored. A warning message is returned in the response.
