Sabre was the first organisation to specialise in technology for the airline industry, initially as a division of American Airlines and, since the year 2000, as an independent corporation. As the first mover in many areas it set standards that have been adopted across the entire industry. Sabre’s leadership has been usurped in recent years by Amadeus, a company that originated as a joint venture of European airlines and was created specifically to prevent Sabre’s expansion into their home markets. Having substantially achieved that aim, the owners and management of Amadeus have overseen its growth to a point where it is the clear market leader in its two main business areas.

In the first decade of the current century many analysts saw Sabre as a company going backwards. This came to a head with American Airlines’ announcement in 2009 that it would move to a new Passenger Services System to be built by Hewlett-Packard, cutting the link with Sabre that had been in place since the 1950s. With hindsight though this challenge may be seen as the spur that has propelled Sabre to a stronger position in 2018 than at any other time in its history.

Judicious investment in core products and disposal of under-performing businesses has brought the company to a point where it is a strong second in the market for PSS, having not only retained AA’s business when H-P failed to deliver, but also added substantial volumes following the AA-US Airways merger. Its GDS business is in second place in the global market but only because of Amadeus’s historical dominance in Europe. In other regions Sabre is either the clear or the joint leader in market share.

In July 2018 Sabre has recognised the interdependence of airline technology and its distribution products by merging the Travel Network division with Airline Solutions to create a new entity called Travel Solutions. This unit will be responsible for over 90% of group revenues and will report to Dave Shirk, President Travel Solutions. In its technological evolution Sabre has been a little more conservative than some of its rivals but arguably it has managed the cost/benefit equations better than most of them and is now positioned to reap the rewards of a substantial move to cloud-based computing for its core products.