Sabre Corporation

Last updated

Sabre Corporation
Company type Public
ISIN US78573M1045
Industry Travel
Founded1960;64 years ago (1960)
Headquarters
Southlake, Texas
,
United States
Key people
Products Sabre Global Distribution System
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$2.908 billion (2023)
Increase2.svgUS$0.047 billion (2023)
Increase Negative.svgUS$(0.528) billion (2023)
Total assets Decrease2.svgUS$4.672 billion (2023)
Total equity Increase Negative.svgUS$(1.376) billion (2023)
Number of employees
Decrease2.svg 6,232 (2023)
Website sabre.com
Footnotes /references
Financials as of December 31,2023.
References: [2]

Sabre Corporation, a travel technology company headquartered in Southlake, Texas, is the largest global distribution systems (GDS) provider for air bookings. The company's primary product, the Sabre Global Distribution System, and others like it, act as neutral intermediaries, connecting travel suppliers like airlines and hotels with travel sellers like agencies. They offer real-time availability and pricing, making them important for corporate travel management.

Contents

Founded by American Airlines in 1960, Sabre was spun off and became an independent company in 2000. In 2007, Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners acquired Sabre Holdings, the company's former name. Sabre then went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 2014.

Sabre's primary competitors are Amadeus IT Group, which operates the Amadeus CRS and Travelport, which operates the Galileo GDS.

History

Early history

In 1953, C.R. Smith, the president of American Airlines, met Blair Smith, an IBM salesman, on a flight and developed the Sabre (the Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment) concept. [3] [4] The system was based on SAGE, the first major system to use interactive real-time computing, which IBM had developed for military use. [4]

Sabre Corporation was founded in 1960 by American Airlines. [5] Sabre Corporation installed the first Sabre reservation system in Briarcliff Manor, New York that year. [3] The system consisted of two IBM 7090 mainframe computers and processed 84,000 calls per day. [3] [4]

In 1964, Sabre's nationwide network was completed and became the largest commercial real-time data-processing system in the world. [4] Sabre Corporation handled 7500 passenger reservations per hour in 1965. [3] The Sabre system upgraded to IBM System/360 and moved to a new center in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1972. [6]

In 1976, the Sabre system was installed into a travel agency for the first time. [5] This allowed travel agents to have instant access to flights. [5] By the end of the year, 130 locations installed the Sabre system. [4] Sabre introduced BargainFinder, the industry's first automated low-fare search capability, in 1984. [7] The following year, eAAsySabre was launched. [8] It gave consumers with personal computers access to the Sabre system to make airline, hotel and car rental reservations. [8]

In 1989 The New York Times reported Sabre having "about 38 percent of the reservations market." [9]

In 1996, the company launched Travelocity, an online travel agency. [10] Sabre formed a joint venture with Abacus International in 1998 to create SabreSonic, a customized version of Sabre's reservations system to Abacus subscribers in Asia. [11]

2000s

AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, spun off its controlling stake in Sabre Corporation in 2000 to form an independent company. [12] [13] [14]

In 2001, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) purchased Sabre Holdings' airline hardware and communications business, [15] and Sabre began migrating its old mainframe for air travel shopping and pricing to HP NonStop and Linux servers. [16] In 2005, the company acquired lastminute.com, an online travel and leisure retailer. [17]

Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners acquired Sabre Corporation in March 2007. [18] [19] [20] [21] In March 2010, the company acquired Calidris, a revenue integrity and business intelligence company. [22] Sabre Corporation acquired SoftHotel, a web-based property management provider, in June 2011. [23] The company launched Sabre Red App Centre in March 2012. [24] In April 2014, Sabre Corporation went public on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SABR. [25] [26] The IPO sold for $16 per share and valued Sabre at $3.93 billion. [27] [28] The company acquired Genares, a hospitality technology company, that September. [29]

In December 2014, Bravofly Rumbo Group acquired Sabre European Online Travel Agency, lastminute.com.

In January 2015, Sabre sold its Travelocity brand to Expedia, Inc. for $280 million. [30] [31] [32] In July 2015, Sabre acquired Abacus International, a global distribution system based in the Asia-Pacific region. The deal included long-term distribution agreements between Sabre and the 11 Asian airlines that previously shared ownership of Abacus. [33]

In June 2016, Sabre announced Tom Klein would resign as CEO by the end of 2016. [34] [35]

In October 2019 Sabre announced its purchase of Radixx for $110M. Radixx is a seller of passenger service software to small and budget airlines. Sabre expects Radixx to generate $20 million in 2019. [36]

In October 2021, Sabre announced the sale of the AirCentre portfolio to CAE Inc for $392.5M. [37]

In May 2022 Sabre announced its purchase of Nuvola, a provider of hotel and service optimization software. [38]

In August 2022, Sabre acquired Conferma Pay, a UK-based payments company. [39]

In March 2023, Sabre announced some executive changes as part of what it called its "long-term succession plan." The changes include Sean Menke transitioning to be solely Executive Chair effective April 27. At the same time, Kurt Ekert, who served as the president of Sabre, will take over as CEO. [40]

Operations

The company is based in Southlake, Texas and has additional offices in London, Kraków, Bangalore, Montevideo and Singapore. [41] In December 2013, the company handled approximately 85,000 data transactions every second for customers according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram . [42] At the time, the company did business with 70 airlines and 100,000 hotels. [42] Sabre has two major business verticals - Sabre Travel Solutions and Sabre Hospitality Solutions.

Acquisitions

Related Research Articles

Travelocity.com is an online travel agency owned by the American Expedia Group. It has 12.4 million monthly unique visitors, making it the third most popular website owned by Expedia Group, after Expedia.com and Hotels.com.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Travel agency</span> Retailer that provides tourism-related services

A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destination. Travel agencies can provide outdoor recreation, arranging logistics for luggage and medical items delivery for travellers upon request, public transport timetables, car rentals, and bureau de change services. Travel agencies can also serve as general sales agents for airlines that do not have offices in a specific region. A travel agency's main function is to act as an agent, selling travel products and services on behalf of a supplier. They are also called Travel Advisors. They do not keep inventory in-hand unless they have pre-booked hotel rooms or cabins on a cruise ship for a group travel event such as a wedding, honeymoon, or other group event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orbitz</span> Web-based travel fare aggregator service

Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine. The website is owned by Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Expedia Group. It is headquartered in the Citigroup Center, Chicago, Illinois.

lastminute.com is an online travel and leisure retailer.

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. Its primary system is commonly known as a Global Distribution System (GDS), which is used by travel agents and travel related websites to book airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, tour packages and associated products. Worldspan also hosts IT services and product solutions for major airlines.

Sabre Global Distribution System, owned by Sabre Corporation, is a travel reservation system used by travel agents and companies to search, price, book, and ticket travel services provided by airlines, hotels, car rental companies, rail providers and tour operators. Originally developed by American Airlines under CEO C.R. Smith with the assistance of IBM in 1960, the booking service became available for use by external travel agents in 1976 and became independent of the airline in March 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Expedia Group</span> US online travel shopping company

Expedia Group, Inc. is an American travel technology company that owns and operates travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, CarRentals.com, Expedia Cruises, Wotif, and Trivago. Over 3 million lodging facilities and flights on over 500 airlines are bookable on the company's websites. It has 16,500 employees, and its headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington.

GetThere is a corporate travel reservation system that is owned by Sabre Corporation. GetThere first started in 1995 as a company named Internet Travel Network (itn.net) founded by Dan Whaley, Al Whaley and Bruce Yoxsimer. It changed its name to GetThere and went public on NASDAQ under the ticker GTHR in November 1999 and was acquired by Sabre in August 2000 for $757 million. Following the acquisition, GetThere merged with the Sabre Business Travel Solutions system. It is now a part of Sabre Travel Network. The first airline reservation (SFO-LAS) ever made over the World Wide Web was made on June 5, 1995 through an ITN server in Palo Alto, CA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amadeus IT Group</span> Spanish travel technology company

Amadeus IT Group, S.A. is a major Spanish multinational technology company that provides software solutions for the global travel and tourism industry. It is the world's leading provider of travel technology that focus on developing software for airlines, hotels, travel agencies, and other travel-related businesses to enhance their operations and customer experiences.

Hotwire is a travel website that offers airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages. It operates by selling off unsold travel inventory at discounted prices. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Hotwire, Inc. is an operating company of the Expedia Group, which also operates the website ClassicVacations, Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity and Egencia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ATPCO</span>

The Airline Tariff Publishing Company is a privately held corporation that engages in the collection and distribution of fare and fare-related data for the airline and travel industry. ATPCO currently works with more than 440 airlines worldwide, and it supplies more than 99% of the industry’s intermediated fare data to all the major airfare pricing engines, storing over 351 million active fares in its database and managing an average of 18 million fare changes each day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Travelport</span> Smallest, by revenue, of the top three global distribution systems

Travelport Worldwide Ltd provides distribution, technology, payment solutions for the travel and tourism industry. It is the smallest, by revenue, of the top three global distribution systems (GDS) after Amadeus IT Group and Sabre Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Webjet</span> Australian travel agency

Webjet Limited is a global digital travel business operating and trading in both consumer (B2C) and wholesale (B2B) markets. Webjet Limited's Registered Office is located in Melbourne, Australia.

HomeAway was a vacation rental marketplace. It operated through 50 websites in 23 languages through which it offered rentals of cabins, condos, castles, villas, barns, and farmhouses.

Travelstart is an African online travel booking website, offering flights, hotel bookings, car rental, vacation packages and other travel services through an online booking engine

eDreams is an online travel agency based in Barcelona, Spain, that offers deals in regular and charter flights, low-cost airlines, hotels, car rentals, dynamic packages, holiday packages and travel insurance.

Roomkey, formerly Room Key, was a hotel metasearch engine. Roomkey was a joint venture founded by Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, and Wyndham Worldwide, or their respective affiliates. There were over 45,000 hotels in 150 countries listed on Room Key, including 60 brands.

Lastminute.com N.V. is the owner of several travel brands including lastminute.com, Volagratis, Rumbo, Bravofly, Jetcost, Crocierissime.it, weg.de, and Hotelscan.

Booking Holdings Inc. is an American travel technology company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that owns and operates several travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines including namesake and flagship Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda, Kayak, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable. It operates websites in about 40 languages and 200 countries.

Secret Escapes is a members-only British travel company selling heavily discounted luxury hotel stays and trips through its website and mobile app. Secret Escapes operates in Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.

References

  1. ↑ Driskill, Matt (15 January 2020). "Sabre Corporation names new chairman | Asian Aviation | Magazine". Asian Aviation. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  2. ↑ "Annual report Form 10-K 2023 Sabre Corporation". 15 February 2024. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 MCMILLAN, ROBERT (27 July 2012). "Forget the Booze. The Mad Men's Best Friend Was SABRE" . Wired .
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Anthes, Gary (31 May 2004). "Sidebar: Sabre Timeline". Computerworld .
  5. 1 2 3 SNYDER, BRETT (7 January 2011). "Sabre Makes the Wrong Choice By Removing American Airlines". CBS News .
  6. ↑ McKenney, James L. (1 January 1995). Waves of Change: Business Evolution Through Information Technology.
  7. ↑ "American Airlines Reveals Limits Of World-Class IT". 26 January 2012.
  8. 1 2 Vervest, Peter; Dunn, Al (2000). How to Win Customers in the Digital World: Total Action Or Fatal Inaction . ISBN   9783540665755.
  9. ↑ "Sabre System Cuts Its Price" . The New York Times . 20 April 1989.
  10. ↑ Jainchill, Johanna (4 June 2012). "Travelocity fights to regain market share". Travel Weekly.
  11. ↑ Wada, Isae (4 March 1998). "Sabre Finalized Abacus Pact". Travel Weekly.
  12. ↑ Wichter, Zach (29 April 2019). "How One Computer System Tangled Up Several Airlines" . The New York Times .
  13. ↑ KOO, CAROLYN (14 December 1999). "AMR Climbs on Sabre Spinoff". TheStreet.com .
  14. ↑ "American Airlines Assails Sabre in Data-Business Trial". 25 October 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  15. ↑ Levere, Jane L. (16 March 2001). "Electronic Data Systems to Buy Sabre Airline Computer Unit" . The New York Times .
  16. ↑ Anthes, Gary (31 May 2004). "Sabre Flies to Open Systems".
  17. 1 2 "Sabre Holdings Completes Acquisition of lastminute.com". 20 July 2005.
  18. ↑ Sorkin, Andrew Ross (11 December 2006). "Equity Firms in Talks to Buy Sabre Holdings" . The New York Times .
  19. ↑ "TPG and Silver Lake take Sabre private". Travel Weekly. 9 April 2007.
  20. ↑ "Equity Firms in Talks to Buy Sabre Holdings" . 11 December 2006.
  21. ↑ "Silver Lake, Texas Pacific To Buy Sabre Holdings" . 12 December 2006.
  22. ↑ "Sabre Acquires Calidris". 31 March 2010.
  23. ↑ "Sabre Holdings Acquires SoftHotel". 30 June 2011. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  24. ↑ Schaal, Dennis (6 March 2012). "Should Sabre be red-faced about Sabre Red App Centre launch?". Phocuswire.
  25. ↑ Murray, Lance (4 April 2014). "Sabre Holdings sets IPO valuation at up to $4.1B". American City Business Journals .
  26. ↑ "Travelocity owner Sabre's IPO prices at $16 per share -underwriter". Reuters. 16 April 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  27. ↑ Samantha Nielson (25 September 2014). "Maverick Capital establishes position in Sabre Corporation" . Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  28. ↑ "Travelocity owner Sabre takes flight on $627M IPO". 17 April 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  29. ↑ "Sabre acquires global hospitality technology company". 21 September 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  30. ↑ Expedia Inc acquires Travelocity in $280 million deal. Reuters, 26 January 2015
  31. ↑ Robinson-Jacobs, Karen (23 January 2015). "Sabre sells Travelocity to Expedia for $280 million". Dallas Morning News .
  32. ↑ "Expedia Buys Booking Site Travelocity for $280M in Cash". Inc. Associated Press. 23 January 2015.
  33. ↑ Rudnansky, Ryan (1 July 2015). "Sabre Acquires Abacus International for $411M". TravelPulse .
  34. ↑ "Sabre Corporation Announces CEO Transition" (Press release). Sabre Corporation. 20 June 2016.
  35. ↑ Shine, Conor (20 June 2016). "Sabre Corporation's CEO Tom Klein to resign at year's end". Dallas Morning News .
  36. ↑ O'Neil, Sean (16 October 2019). "Sabre's $110 Million Deal for Radixx Gives It New Upside in Passenger Services Tech". Skift. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  37. ↑ "Sabre Announces CAE to acquire AirCentre portfolio" (Press release). Sabre Corporation. 28 October 2021.
  38. ↑ "Sabre advances hotel retailing with acquisition of Nuvola". Cision PR Newswire. 9 May 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  39. ↑ PYMNTS (8 August 2022). "Sabre Acquires Conferma Pay for B2B Payments". www.pymnts.com. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  40. ↑ "Sabre Corp. Announces Plans for New CEO, Executive Chair". www.travelmarketreport.com. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  41. ↑ "Sabre Corporation" . Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  42. 1 2 FUQUAY, JIM (5 December 2013). "Think of Sabre Holdings as a data company, CEO says". Fort Worth Star-Telegram .
  43. ↑ "Sabre acquires stake in German CRS". 11 July 2000. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  44. ↑ "E-Business: Sabre acquires Dublin-based Gradient Solutions". 17 August 2000. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  45. ↑ "Sabre buys GetThere for $757 million, announces layoffs". 29 August 2000. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  46. ↑ "Nexion adds 60-member host agency to network". Travel Weekly. 19 January 2005.
  47. ↑ "Sabre Acquires Software Developer" . Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  48. ↑ "Travelocity.com Buys Site59 for $43 Million". 26 March 2002. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  49. ↑ "Resfeber switches to Sabre Travel Network, citing customer service and technology" . Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  50. ↑ "Sabre buys Kiehl Hendrickson Group". American City Business Journals . 4 November 2002.
  51. ↑ "Sabre Acquires EDS Axresource Product Line" . Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  52. ↑ "Travelocity to Acquire World Choice Travel Assets". 22 October 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  53. ↑ "Sabre Airline Solutions Expands International Presence". 16 August 2004. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  54. ↑ "Travelocity Acquires Allstate Ticketing And Its Showtickets.com Website". 31 August 2004. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  55. ↑ Rosenwald, Michael S. (10 December 2004). "SynXis to Be Bought for $40 Million". The Washington Post .
  56. ↑ "Nexion adds 60-member host agency to network". 19 January 2005. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  57. ↑ "Acquisition Gives Sabre Access To Online Search Revenue". 6 April 2005. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  58. ↑ "Travelocity buys Lastminute.com for £577m". 12 May 2005. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  59. ↑ "(BW) Sabre Holdings Acquires E-site Marketing to Build on Comprehensive Hospitality Offerings". 5 June 2007. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  60. ↑ "Sabre acquires Flight Explorer" . Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  61. ↑ "Sabre acquires EB2". 19 December 2008. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  62. ↑ "Calidris to become part of Sabre Airline Solutions". 31 March 2010. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  63. ↑ "Sabre Holdings buys Flightline Data Services". 8 July 2010. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  64. ↑ May, Kevin (29 September 2010). "Sabre buys flight planning technology provider f:wz". Phocuswire.
  65. ↑ "Sabre Holdings acquires SoftHotel" (Press release). Sable Corporation. 29 June 2011.
  66. ↑ "Sabre Airline Solutions Acquires Prism Group" (Press release). Sabre Corporation. 1 August 2012.
  67. ↑ "Sabre Acquires Hotel-Tech Provider Genares as Competition Heats Up". 12 September 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  68. ↑ May, Kevin (24 November 2015). "Sabre acquires Trust International for $154 million". Phocuswire.
  69. ↑ "Sabre grows Airline Solutions portfolio with acquisition of Airpas Aviation". Sabre. Retrieved 28 January 2018.

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