Design an Airline Management System Object-Oriented Design Interview
Design an airline domain model covering airports, aircraft seat layouts, scheduled flights versus dated flight instances, passengers, reservations and tickets, seat assignment, and flight status transitions.
1. Problem Statement
Design an airline management system: the airline schedules flights between airports, operates dated flight instances on specific aircraft, and lets passengers book reservations with assigned seats, possibly across multiple legs. Flights move through statuses like scheduled, boarding, departed, and arrived. Start by clarifying scope and the core objects.
2. Live Coding Format
Work in the provided coding workspace while explaining your decisions to the live interviewer. Validation may use inline tests, examples, comments, or a verbal walkthrough.
3. Key Focus Areas
- 1Flight (schedule) vs. FlightInstance (dated operation)
- 2Aircraft seat layout and seat compatibility
- 3Seat assignment uniqueness and release
- 4Flight status transitions and multi-leg itinerary connections
4. What Strong Candidates Should Demonstrate
- ✓Separate a scheduled Flight template from a dated FlightInstance that owns seats and status.
- ✓Model aircraft seat layouts and enforce seat existence and cabin compatibility.
- ✓Enforce one-passenger-per-seat and legal flight-status transitions.
- ✓Model multi-leg itineraries whose legs must connect.
Want interactive feedback?
Practice this problem in the live coding workspace while the interviewer probes your clarification, implementation, trade-offs, and validation.
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