The document discusses the history and development of the global distribution system (GDS) for airline travel reservations. It describes how in the past, making a single reservation across multiple airlines required 20 separate communications, which led to the creation of the first computerized reservation system called SABRE. SABRE and competing systems like Apollo automated reservations and helped airlines and travel agents distribute inventory and book flights more efficiently. This helped establish the oligopoly of major GDS providers that still exist today.

1. History of Travel
Distribution
Travel 101, App in the Air

2. Review
Full Content
PNR
PSS & CSR
Codeshare vs interlining
Married segment
Passive segment
Stopover vs connection
NDC

3. Manual

4. Manual Reservation —> 20 separate
communications for 1 passenger
traveling on 2 connecting airlines

5. The Reservisor

6. Mechanical System

7. Smith meets Smith
LA - NYC

8. Birth of SABRE

9. Data on Travel
Patterns
Destination
Month
Season
Day of week
Hour of the day

10. Bob Crandall, American Airlines

11. OAG &
“listing bias”

12. Richard Ferris, United Airlines

13. Apollo
(Galileo —> Travelport)

14. American Society of
Travel Agents meeting

15. SABRE vs Apollo

16. Value Proposition
800K with SABRE vs 350K manually
“Override” commissions
5% for <$1M in bookings
6% —> $1m+
7% —> $3m+

17. Screen bias

18. Value Chain
Supplier
Inventory
Distribution
Sales
Market

19. Value Chain
Supplier
Inventory
Distribution
Sales
Market
OTA/TMC
Passenger
GDS
CRS
Airline

21. Segmentation

22. Formation of GDS

23. Formation of GDS

24. GDS oligopoly

25. Answer?