Airline Timeout

Some airlines respond fast; others take their time. Airline Timeout lets you manage the NDC (New Distribution Capability) shopping-response timeout for each airline — per sales branch and even per travel duration — so you can squeeze out the maximum number of offers without dragging down your overall response time.

What is an NDC shopping-response timeout?

It's the maximum time (in seconds) Albus waits for an airline to return fare offers during an NDC journey search. Set it too short and responses come back quickly, but you may miss offers from slower airlines. Set it too long and you'll capture more offers, but your final response time grows. The goal is to find the right balance for each airline and channel.

Fallback Logic: which setting wins

The timeout values you configure in Albus are applied to airline API (Application Programming Interface) calls in a strict priority order. This guarantees that even without a fine-grained setting, calls safely fall back to the platform default.

Priority	Setting scope	How it applies
Priority 0	Individual AirShopping API call	When a value is set directly on the API request at call time, Albus's settings are ignored and this value takes top priority.
Priority 1	Specific sales branch (set in Albus)	A value set for a specific Sales Branch in your account is applied first among the Albus settings.
Priority 2	All branches (set in Albus)	If there's no setting for a specific Sales Branch, or it's turned Off, the value applied to All channels in your agency is used.
Priority 3	Platform default (25 seconds)	If your account has no individual setting, or all are disabled, the platform's stable default applies: AirShopping = 25 seconds.

Viewing Timeout Settings

Open Aggregator > Airline Timeout in the sidebar to land on the list of timeout settings.

Airline Timeout list with search filters and results sorted by newest

Item	Details
Search filters	Active — filter by setting status: All (default), On, Off. Created at — search by creation-date range (default: all periods). Keyword — search by Sales Branch ID or Created by (the creator's email ID). Use the reset control to clear your search criteria.
Search results	The list shows timeout settings matching your criteria. If there are none, the list shows "No search results found." Results are sorted by newest creation date.

Creating a Timeout Setting

Here's how to register a custom timeout policy for a specific sales channel.

Fill in the Basic Info

Sales Branch: Choose the channel this timeout applies to. Options are All (applies to every channel) or one of your registered sales branches.

Choosing All registers a default that applies to all of your agency's sales channels (Priority 2).

Choosing a specific Sales Branch registers a custom setting for that channel only (Priority 1).

No duplicates: You can't register a setting for a Sales Branch that already has one.

Active: Set to On to activate the timeout setting; set to Off to disable it. (Default: On)

Define your Journey Ranges

Segment timeouts by the total travel duration of the search journey.

Click [Add a Range +] to add a range.

Entering range values: Enter each range's To (end) value. Numbers only, up to 6 digits, in minutes.

When you set Range 1's To to 1200, Range 2's From automatically starts at 1201.

Leave the last range's To empty. If a journey's total travel duration is greater than the last range's From, the last range's timeout value applies.

Adding or removing ranges automatically creates or removes the matching AirShopping detail columns in the Timeout Setting matrix below.

Enter the Timeout Setting values

Fill in the per-airline timeout for each combination of Sales Branch and travel-duration range. Numbers only, up to 3 digits, in seconds.

You can save with empty cells. Leaving an airline-or-range cell empty means that item follows the lower-priority setting (All-channel or platform default). Leave airlines that don't need tuning empty so they follow the default.

Bulk entry: Multi-select airline rows to apply or reset timeout values in bulk. Only cells where you entered a value overwrite the existing one. Applying while the value is empty keeps existing timeout values intact rather than overwriting them.

Save

Click [Save] to create the new timeout setting.

Airline Timeout create form with Basic Info, Define Journey Ranges, and the Timeout Setting matrix

NOTE

The travel duration that an airline reports for a specific returned offer may differ from the travel-duration baseline used to apply your AirShopping timeout. To decide which range applies, Albus first estimates the search journey's travel duration by calculating segment travel times from each airline's recent offers over a set period. Because that estimate blends a range of travel-time data for the same journey, it can differ from the total travel duration an airline reports in real time.

Viewing, Editing & Deleting a Setting

After you register per-branch timeout settings, be sure to update each channel's timeout whenever you integrate a new airline. A newly integrated airline has no initial timeout value, so until you set one, it follows the lower-priority setting (All-channel or platform default).

View Mode

Edit Mode

Airline Timeout detail page in Edit Mode with sortable Range columns

Item	Details
Basic Info	Review and edit the basic information.
Define Journey Ranges	Review and edit the journey-range setup. If you change the journey ranges, double-check the Timeout Setting columns and watch for any missing values.
Timeout Setting	Review and edit the per-airline timeout values. Click Edit Mode to switch to an editable state, and View Mode to return to read-only. Click Save in the top-right corner to save your changes; you'll return to the list afterward, so come back to the detail page to confirm everything saved correctly. In View Mode, you can sort by column — click a column title (Range #) to sort values ascending or descending and quickly spot a misconfigured airline. If you delete a journey range and re-add it before saving, the original timeout values are restored; after saving, they can't be recovered. Leaving the page without saving discards your changes.
Save	Save the changes to the timeout setting.
Delete	Delete the timeout setting. When you delete a specific Sales Branch's timeout, that channel automatically falls back to the lower-priority setting (All-channel or platform default). Deleted timeout settings can't be recovered and disappear from the list immediately.
Metadata	History: View the change history. A history entry is created whenever you save changes to the Sales Branch, Active status, Journey Ranges, or per-airline values.

What is an NDC shopping-response timeout?#

Fallback Logic: which setting wins#

Viewing Timeout Settings#

Creating a Timeout Setting#

Viewing, Editing & Deleting a Setting#

What is an NDC shopping-response timeout?

Fallback Logic: which setting wins

Viewing Timeout Settings

Creating a Timeout Setting

Viewing, Editing & Deleting a Setting