Flight Booking System

This Flight Booking System was developed to simulate the process of booking a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Through this project, I was able to explore and implement core programming concepts as part of a guided assignment, focusing on user interactions, data management, and modular design.

Project Overview

My goal for this assignment was to create a console-based application that guides a user through the flight booking process. This included selecting a flight time, choosing an available seat, and receiving a booking confirmation. The system needed to handle multiple bookings and provide a summary of all reservations at the end.

Key Features Implemented

• User-Friendly Interface: Prompts the user for their name and presents a clear menu of flight departure times.
• Flight Time Selection: Allows users to choose from five predefined departure and arrival times, all for a fixed 2.5-hour flight duration between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
• Dynamic Seating Arrangement: Displays the seating layout for each flight, indicating already booked seats with "**".
  • The plane has 50 seats, arranged six per row (three on each side of a walkway).
  • The first four rows are First Class, and the remaining rows are Economy Class.
  • Economy class tickets are fixed at R1600.00, while First Class tickets are 20% more.
• Input Validation: Ensures that user selections for flight times (1-5) and seat numbers are valid and available. If an invalid or already booked seat is chosen, a helpful message is displayed, and the user can re-enter their selection.
• Booking Confirmation: Upon successful seat selection, a detailed flight booking ticket is displayed, including the passenger's name, flight details, seat number, and ticket price.
• Multiple Bookings: Users have the option to make additional bookings for various flight times, with case-insensitive input for continuing ('Y'/'N').
• Booking Summary: Before exiting, the program displays the total number of bookings made for each flight time.

Technical Implementation Details

I focused on a structured approach for this project, carefully utilizing functions and appropriate data structures to effectively manage the simulation's complexity.

Data Structures

• To fulfil the assignment's data management requirements, I used a two-dimensional array to store and manage departure and arrival times for the various flight options. Additionally, one-dimensional arrays were employed to track seat availability for each flight and to store details of individual bookings.

Functions

To ensure a modular and maintainable codebase, a key aspect of the assignment, I defined several functions, each with a specific responsibility:

• displayFlightMenu(): Displays the available flight times, accepts the user's choice, and performs initial validation.
• validateMenuOption(): Validates that the chosen flight time option is between 1 and 5.
• displaySeatingArrangementInitial(): Shows the seating layout for a flight when no seats have been booked yet. This function also clearly labels "First Class" and "Economy Class" sections and their respective prices.
• displaySeatingArrangementWithBookedSeats(): Updates and displays the seating arrangement, making booked seats with "**". This function calls validateSeatAvailability() to determine which seats are taken.
• validateSeatAvailability(): Checks if a chosen seat number is already booked. (Assumes valid seat number format, only checks availability).
• calculateTicketPrice(): Determines the cost of the ticket based on the chosen travel class (First or Economy). This function ensures the First Class price is accurately calculated as 20% more than the Economy Class, using a global constant for the economy price.
• displayBookingTicket(): Generates and displays the comprehensive flight booking ticket for each successful booking, calling calculateTicketPrice() to get the final cost.

Main program Flow (main())

The main() function orchestrates the program's execution. It handles:

• Reading the user's full name.
• The primary loop for allowing multiple bookings.
• Calling the relevant functions for displaying menus, seat arrangements, and booking tickets.
• Validating seat choices and handling re-entry if a seat is already taken.
• Managing the case-insensitive "continue" prompt.
• Displaying the final booking counts before exiting.

How to Run

# Example for C++ program:
# Compile the source code
g++ main.cpp -o flight_booking

# Run the executable
./flight_booking

License / Credits

This project was developed as part of a coursework assignment for UNISA.

Copyright © 2025 Bruce R. Thagwana, UNISA. All rights reserved.