ReserVec

ReserVec was a computerized reservation system developed by Ferranti Canada for Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA, today's Air Canada) in the late 1950s. It appears to be the first such system ever developed, predating the more famous SABRE system in the US by about two years. Although Ferranti had high hopes that the system would be used by other airlines, no further sales were forthcoming and development of the system ended. Major portions of the transistor-based circuit design were put to good use in the Ferranti-Packard 6000 computer, which would later go on to see major sales in Europe as the ICT 1904.

In the early 1950s the airline industry was undergoing explosive growth. A serious limiting factor was the time taken to make a single booking, which could take upwards of 90 minutes in total. TCA found their bookings typically involved between three and seven calls to the centralized booking centre in Toronto, where telephone operators would scan flight status displayed on a huge board showing all scheduled flights one month into the future. Bookings past that time could not be made, nor could an agent reliably know anything other than if the flight was full or not – to book two seats was much more complex, requiring the operator to find the "flight card" for that flight in a filing cabinet.

In 1946 American Airlines decided to tackle this problem through automation, introducing the Reservisor, a simple electromechanical computer based on telephone switching systems. Newer versions of the Reservisor included magnetic drum systems for storing flight information further into the future. The ultimate version of the system, the Magnetronic Reservisor, was installed in 1956 and could store data for 2,000 flights a day up to one month into the future. Reservisors were later sold to a number of airlines, as well as Sheraton for hotel bookings, and Goodyear for inventory control.

...
Wikipedia