Why consolidators should send webhooks, not make us poll
In the flight products I have built, we did not have ticketing authority. Consolidators issued our tickets.
That works. But one part is slower than it needs to be: finding out when a ticket has been issued.
How ticketing works without authority
When a customer books, we hand over the PNR to the consolidator. They issue the ticket.
Usually that happens within about 10 minutes.
How we find out: short polling
Our platform short polls the consolidator’s order details API. It checks again and again to see if the ticket has been issued.
Once the ticket is issued, the customer is informed automatically.
When it takes longer, we chase
Sometimes issuance takes longer. The longest I have seen was 30 minutes.
When that happens, we have to chase the consolidator.
Four consolidators, four ways of working
We worked with 4 consolidators. Each one works differently.
That means separate checks and separate logic for each one.
The fix: a webhook when the ticket is issued
A webhook is a message the consolidator sends the moment something happens.
A webhook when the ticket is issued would make this simpler and faster. We would know the moment it happens, without polling.