Spreadsheet Simulation of Airline Reservation Policy Using Multimedia Software

A stand-alone Excel spreadsheet simulation template is used to illustrate the detailed rationale of reservation overbooking to both students and professionals working in reservation-based operations. Because almost everyone has personally encountered the frustrations of being “bumped”—losing an airline seat or hotel room reservation—the selection of this particular subject is driven by the belief that at least half of the problem of effectively teaching a sophisticated analytical method is in getting the user’s attention. The personal complications resulting from overbooking presents such a passionate circumstance. Several multimedia tools, Wimba and SnagIt, are used to produce web hosted, mp4 video files of a library of short films illustrating the detailed, step-by-step operation of the spreadsheet template.