Case study · 2025

Business and first class flight booking website with real fares

The agency already had a flight search engine connected to Sabre, but only its agents used it, inside the internal system. We built the public website: customers search a New York–Tokyo business flight themselves, see the real options at real prices and start the booking, without calling anyone.

aurum-flights.app
Client
Travel agency · business and first class
Project type
Public website with real-time search
Our role
Interface, integration, product design
Status
Delivered · real-time search working
TechnologiesReactTypeScriptTanStack StartTailwind
The challenge01

The company wanted anyone, anywhere, to see in seconds exactly the fares an agent sees, in a form any customer can understand, not in industry codes.

The solution02

A booking website with a premium brand identity, matched to what is being sold: business and first class tickets, where customers expect an experience worthy of the price. Behind it, the same fares the agent sees.

The result03

The agency now has a public website on top of the search engine it used only internally: anyone can search for a business or first class flight and see the real options, at real prices, in seconds.

The outcome

The agent's fares, now in the customer's hands.

The rest of the booking journey is built and ready for the payment connection.

Live
Real Sabre results, at the moment of the search
0
Fare system access keys exposed in the browser
4
Booking steps: flight, passengers, payment, confirmation
3
Payment methods ready: card, Apple Pay, Google Pay
The context

The engine existed. Only agents could use it.

The client already had the Sabre-connected flight search engine our team had built earlier, with access to public and private fares from hundreds of airlines. But it was used only internally, by agents, from the customer management system.

The next step was the obvious one: open those same fares to the public. A site where an end customer searches a New York–Tokyo business flight themselves, sees the real options at real prices and starts the booking, without calling an agent.

  • Real fares were available only by phone, through an agent
  • Every quote request took up someone's time on the team
  • Raw data from the reservation system is hard for a customer to read
  • A public website calls for an entirely different level of protection
What we built

A public booking site built on an internal engine.

Visitor searches
Server + Sabre engine
Real itineraries

The search is run by the server, not the visitor's browser. The access details for the fare system never leave the server.

What we delivered

Real-time flight search

The visitor picks origin, destination, dates and number of passengers and gets real results, not a static list: itineraries and prices available at the exact moment of the search, pulled from Sabre.

Results customers can read

Airline name and logo, aircraft model, total duration, stops, included baggage and what the fare covers, shown in a flight card anyone can understand.

The complete booking flow

The whole journey to the end: flight selection, passenger details, the payment page (card, Apple Pay, Google Pay) and confirmation, with an indicator showing customers which step they are on. The flow is built and working; connecting the payment processor is the next step.

Premium design, down to the details

Subtle animations, a destinations section and a layout that works properly on phone and desktop. The site has to say “business class” before the visitor sees the first price.

Security

Access keys never reach the visitor.

The visitor's browser never talks to the search engine directly. The search is run by the server, and the access details for the fare system stay there and nowhere else.

Anyone inspecting the page code finds nothing they could use to access the system on their own. This protection is exactly what separates an internal tool used by signed-in agents from one open to the public, and it cannot be bolted on in a hurry after launch.

The server runs the search

The browser sends the request to our server, and the server passes it to the search engine. The visitor never sees this route.

Nothing exploitable in the page code

Anyone reading the source finds no access key and no address they could use to query the fare system.

Public doesn't mean exposed

The site is open to everyone; the fare system behind it is not.

Challenges

Fares arrive as codes. Customers want clarity.

The problem

Airline reservation systems answer in codes: airport codes, airline codes, aircraft codes, booking classes. An agent reads them after years of practice; an ordinary customer cannot.

How we solved it

The site translates them into clear information: airline name and logo, aircraft model, total duration, stops, included baggage and what the fare covers, in a flight card that reads at a glance.

Have an internal system worth opening to the public?

We build the public website, including the protection that separates an internal tool from one open on the internet.