Why do some flights show in my search results but then say they are not available when I try to book them?

Yes, this happens to almost every agency that sells live flights, and it does not mean something is broken in your portal. When your customer searches, the results come back from the airlines and suppliers connected to your search, and they show what was on sale at that moment. Seats at any one fare are limited, sometimes to only a few, so by the time you reach the booking screen that particular fare may already be taken by another agent or another website somewhere in the world.

Before a ticket is issued, the airline is asked again to confirm the fare and the seats. If anything has changed, the booking stops instead of going through at a fare the airline will not honour. That check works in your favour, because a ticket issued against a fare that no longer exists usually comes back to the agency later as a debit memo or a shortfall you have to cover yourself. How often you see it depends on the route, the season and the supplier behind that fare, so the cheapest fares on busy routes tend to disappear the fastest.

There is no way to remove this completely, because no system can reserve a seat for a customer who is only browsing. What helps is treating a search result as an indication rather than a promise, running a fresh search just before you take payment, and telling your customer plainly that the fare is only secured once the booking is confirmed and the deadline for payment is met.

If you notice the same fares failing again and again rather than now and then, make a note of the route and the dates and raise it with us, so we can check which connection those results are coming from.