API Web Services Software for Carbon Offsetting

API Web Services Software for Integrating Carbon Offsetting Calculations and Payments into Airlines Reservation systems and booking paths Overview of Project This Project will enable an API web service to communicate with existing reservation and booking systems used by airlines around the world via a software module contained within the ticketing paths of the booking systems. The purpose of the communication is to calculate, display and enable the passenger to choose to offset their airline flight CO2e (Carbon Dioxide or equivalent gases) emissions, based on the origin and destination of the flights chosen by the passenger. This is to occur as an integrated part of the booking process, and is not to require the passenger / travel agent / booking personnel to go to another website or other service to perform the calculation and payment for the carbon offset purchase. Rather it should be seen as a seamless part of the booking process, as per examples such as Travel Insurance. The booking platforms are generally known as Global Distributions Systems (GDS) and the major platforms that this project will need to integrate with will be Amadeus, Galileo and Navitaire. The GDS have a number of possible booking paths for airline ticketing. These are: • Public access Internet Booking engines • Travel agent booking engines or native screens • Airline internal booking engines or native screens It is not within the scope of this project to develop the GDS platform modifications that will enable communications with the API, as this will be done by the platform providers. The scope of this project is to write, develop, test and implement the API that will allow the flow of data to and from the API to the various booking avenues. The flow chart on the following page depicts the general flow of information to and from the API, and the interlinking components of an airline reservation systems and booking avenues. The general intent is to have airline passengers provided with an opt out option to offset their airline flight by purchasing an appropriate amount of carbon credits. The booking systems will have a data connection to the API to enable dataflow between the API and the booking system. Data flow will include origin, destination, client details, seat class, one way or return, credit card information and other information deemed as required.