GDS

• GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM can link services, rates and reservations consolidating products and services across all travel sectors especially booking in airlines, hotels, car rentals and activities. It was originally developed to help travel agents worldwide track flight schedules, availability and price and book
• In the 1950s, airlines were at the forefront of technological innovation and created a computerized reservation system
• American Airlines was the first to develop this. Together with IBM they created SABRE using technology originally designed for the US Air Force to coordinate flight operations.
• In the late 1970s the airline industry became deregulated in the United States and airlines were able to set their own prices.
• Airlines file their schedules with seat availability in a separate system and file their fares with the AIRLINE TARIFF PUBLISHING COMPANY
• TRAVEL SERVICE PROVIDERS provide travel content (process and availability) to include in the GDS to offer to agents. Travel Agents that utilize GDS are able to provide their customers their travel.
•  SABRE Semi- automated Business Research Environment , a computer reservation system which was developed to automate the way American Airlines booked reservations.

  Is used by travel agents and companies around the world to search, price, book, and ticket travel services provided by airlines, hotels, car rental companies, rail providers and tour operators.
• ABACUS is a global distribution system (GDS) only used by travel agencies in Asia.

  It is operated by Abacus International Pte, Ltd., which is headquartered in Singapore

  Is owned by Sabre Holdings
• WORLDSPAN is a provider of travel technology and content and a part of the Travelport GDS business.

  • It offers worldwide electronic distribution of travel information, Internet products and connectivity, and e- commerce capabilities for travel agencies, travel service providers and corporations.
• GALILEO is a computer reservations system (CRS) owned by Travelport.

  As of 2000, it had a 26.4% share of worldwide CRS airline bookings.

  It was moved from Denver, Colorado, to the Worldspan datacenter in Atlanta, Georgia
• PEGASUS is the largest processor for electronic hotel transactions and offers distribution services to about 100.000 hotels worldwide.

  It offers an advanced distribution service called ‘seamless connectivity’. Its function is the connection between the hotels CRS and the GDS through a product called ‘Seamless Interface’
• Prior to Sabre, airline agents took reservations in person at airports or ticket offices, or on the phone, where they hand-wrote cards and organized them in LAZY SUSAN.
• 1960-1969 Airline Automation is born

  A formal development arrangement was signed in 1957, and the first experimental system went online in 1960, based on two IBM 7090 mainframes in a new data center and was setup in Briarcliff Manor, New York in 1961. It had cost the astonishing sum of $40 million to develop and install.
• 1980 -1989: Competitive Advantage

  By the 1980s, SABRE offered airline reservations through the CompuServe

  Information Service, and the Prodigy Internet Service GEnie under the Eaasy SABRE brand. American and Sabre separated on March 15, 2000.

  The system connects more than 57, 000 travel agents and millions of travelers with more than 400 airlines, 90,000 hotels, 30 car-rental companies, 200 tour operators, and dozens of railways, ferries and cruise lines.
• 1980 - 1989: cont...

  Sabre Holdings was created to provide solutions to the Travel Industry which has remaining 3 business units :

   Sabre Hospitality Solutions : Hotel Technology Solutions

   Sabre Travel Network : Global Distribution Systems

   Sabre Airline Solutions : Airline Technology
• 1990 - 1999: Expanding Horizons

  The early 90s were an exciting time for Sabre as American Airlines was starting to see Sabre as a much larger asset than just an internal IT group. In 1993, American Airlines combined the internal technology teams to form The Sabre Technology Group pioneered another first when Kathy Misunas was named CEO – one of the first female CEOs in the technology sector.
• 2000 – 2009: Independence

   

   Continuing its legacy of innovation, Sabre built a new air travel shopping engine that both enabled the move of historical shopping capabilities off of the mainframe to open systems, and included new, state-of-the art algorithms for finding the lowest available fare.

   Big advances were also made to airline products throughout the 2000s. In 2007, Sabre Holdings was acquired by the private equity firms of Silver Lake,
• 2010-present: Leading the Industry

   

   Sabre Travel Network introduced the Sabre Red Workspace, a market-leading workspace, designed on an open platform that provides integrated mobile services, air pricing tools to manage ancillary services and sophisticated reporting and efficiency tools.

   Then the worlds 1st B2B app store for the travel industry was introduced that connects with SRW. Sabre Red App Centre was the 1st online marketplace to connect travel buyers, including travel agencies, travel management companies, leisure operators, with 3rd party developer.
• COMPUTERIZED RESERVATION SYSTEM - a computer network through which travel information is viewed and booked by the airlines for inventory control
• Global Distribution System which links travel agencies to travel supplier booking systems such as Over 2,000 agency subscribers Services offered:
• AIR RESERVATIONS A platform focused on delivering a greater experience for the travel agents. It provides easy access to Global Distribution System (GDS) and other travel contents to manage agency operations.
• Computerized Reservation System A computer network through which travel information is viewed and booked by the airlines for inventory control
•  Global Distribution System (GDS) A central computer database which houses and/or provides access to multiple airline, accommodation and hotel inventories, enabling
• Sabre Red 360 A point-of-sale solution that provides agents and suppliers with all the travel information to manage agency operations easily
• Agent ID/Sign-In Code A four-digit code to access the Sabre Red 360
• Sign- Out Set the Sabre Red 360 to inactive mode
• Function Identifier A unique code representing the name of the function
• CITY CODE – unique three-letter code used to identify major cities with commercial airports
• International Air Transport Association

  An organization that represent, lead and serve the airline industry
• AIRLINE CODE – 2-letter or alpha numeric code used in place of the airline name
• AIRPORT CODE – unique three-letter code used to identify each commercial airport worldwide
• EQUIPMENT – type of aircraft being used for the flight
• Encode

  This function is used to obtain the code of a city or airline

   Sabre will not process any queries unless proper code is used.
• Origin - starting point of travel
• Destination - ultimate end of the passengers journey
• • DEPARTURE CITY Is the geographic point in a routing to board a plane, ship or other transportation vehicle.
• CITY PAIR - Is defined as a pair of origin and destination airport codes on a flight itinerary.
• ZULU TIME – standard time used for flight operations globally. This ensures that all pilots, regardless of location, are using the same 24-hour clock, thus avoiding confusion when flying between time zones
• CLASS OF SERVICE – Airlines traditionally have three travel classes, First Class, Business Class, and Economy Class. Depending on the cabin configuration will determine how many classes of service are offered.
• AIRLINE BOOKING CODE – a single letter code which represents the type of fare and the class of service