CONFIRM was an ambitious IT project supposed to create a single

computer reservations system Computer reservation systems, or central reservation systems (CRS), are computerized systems used to store and retrieve information and conduct transactions related to air travel, hotels, car rental, or other activities. Originally designed and ope ...

/global distribution system used by

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

, rental car, and

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

companies. It is often used as a case study as an example of a major failure in

project management Project management is the process of supervising the work of a Project team, team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project initiation documentation, project documentation, crea ...

History

The system was pursued to develop in order to create synergies between AMR, Marriott, Hilton Hotels Corporation and Budget Rent-A-Car and fully integrate and unify the reservation systems of the companies involved. In 1988 the four large corporations made contracts to complete the system by June 1992 project at a cost of $55 million. Unfortunately, the project turned out to be much more complex to finish than the partners had anticipated. They all had high hopes based that AMR would expand on the extremely successful

SABRE A sabre or saber ( ) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the Early Modern warfare, early modern and Napoleonic period, Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such a ...

computer reservation system that had helped

American Airlines American Airlines, Inc. is a major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the ...

create a sustainable competitive advantage after the deregulation of the airline industry. In April 1992, just three months before the system was intended to go live, Confirm failed tests at Los Angeles-based Hilton. AMR also told its partners that it needed another 15 to 18 months to complete the system. The project was never completed. In the process more than 500 technical personnel worked on the project; when the partners disbanded the project in July 1992 they had spent three and a half years and $125 million on the project. The technical complexity of this project was extreme. CONFIRM runs on two IBM 3090 mainframes. One houses the central reservations system, which runs under Transaction Processing Facility. The other mainframe houses a DB2 relational database in an MVS (an IBM mainframe operating system) environment. The database contains decision-support information such as customer histories and pricing data. The system required application-to-application bridging between the two mainframes (CPUs/IBM 3090) for some 60 applications. The main problem was to tie CONFIRM's transaction-processing facility-based central reservation system with its

decision support system A decision support system (DSS) is an information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations and planning levels of an organization (usually mid and higher management) and ...

. Hilton users found that the system's user interface, mainframe transaction processing and mainframe database did not adequately communicate with one another. Other problems included different programming languages and difficulties with recovering databases in event of crashes. These problems were not insurmountable, but they would delay the project for about two extra years. In September 1992, AMR (American Airlines) sued Marriott, Hilton and Budget, alleging they caused CONFIRM's failure by withholding funds, making poor staffing assignment and withdrawing prematurely. The three partners countersued. In January 1994, American Airlines reached out-of court settlements with all of its partners for undisclosed amounts.

References

{{Reflist Travel technology Computer reservation systems

History

See also

Further reading

References