Saber (CRS)
Saber ( acronym for Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment ; IATA Code 1S ) is one of three (Saber, Travelport, Amadeus ) major computer reservation systems (CRS). Connected via a terminal , the worldwide availability of flights, hotel beds, train tickets and other services can be checked and bookings made .
history
Cyrus Rowlett Smith , then CEO of American Airlines , had the idea for such a system in 1953 on a transcontinental flight from Los Angeles to New York when he was sitting next to an IBM employee who was involved in the SAGE project to ward off enemy bomber attacks on North America .
From the experience of the project and the claims of an electronic booking system US state was until 1960 in Briarcliff Manor in New York based on two IBM 7090 - Mainframes the first computer-controlled project with a capacity of 84,000 telephone calls per day. By 1964, American Airlines had over a thousand subscribers over the telephone network in 60 US cities. It was one of the largest private data processors in the world and became a kind of prototype for other airlines who also switched their reservation systems.
The mainframe computers were exchanged for newer IBM System / 360 in 1972 and moved underground to Tulsa , Oklahoma . From 1976 the competitor United Airlines connected travel agencies to their system for the first time with Apollo , from which Galileo later emerged . Saber followed in the same year. Agencies in Canada were connected in 1983 , followed three years later with Great Britain, the first country in Europe.
Some railroad companies, such as Amtrak, use Saber technology. The operator of the Eurotunnels , the Eurostar Group , switched to the Amadeus (CRS) system .
The American company took a 25 percent stake in the Japanese market leader AXESS , a subsidiary of Japan Airlines , in 1995 and exchanged passenger information, for example. The reservation system FANTASIA , founded by the Australian airline Qantas Airways in 1989, was connected. With Abacus , founded in May 1988 by Cathay Pacific Airways and Singapore Airlines with 11,000 connected travel agencies , another provider that is mainly active in the Pacific region has decided to work with Saber.
In May 1998 , US Airways switched off their computers and moved all of their flight data to the computer in Oklahoma. In mid-November 2000 , the data from INFINI , a subsidiary of Abacus and All Nippon Airways with over 6000 connected travel agencies, was successfully integrated into the mainframe. In Europe, the Italian Alitalia is one of the largest users of Saber.
Working method in the travel agency
To connect to the computer system, users needed a secured line, for example via a dedicated line with Nortel - VPN box or an encrypted Internet connection. Each agency is assigned a four-digit alphanumeric pseudo city code (PCC), which contains a pool of addresses for end devices, such as computers or printers for ATB2 or e-flight tickets . Registered participants can use an emulator to use commands ( format ) to query information such as flight information, prices or the weather in the target region.
As an example, an availability query in the Java terminal:
| at the | from | to | in between briefly to Thailand | ||
| 1 | 31DEC | FRA | SYD | 0930 | BKK |
Flight details: Thai Airways
A Passenger Name Record is created for each passenger and is saved in the system.
In Germany, the Merlin Java application as a tourist reservation system offers a simple way of booking trips that do not require any commands or special characters. This allows users to select various tour operators with the mouse on a graphical interface .
Others
Today, over 53,000 travel agencies, 400 airlines, thousands of hotel beds, even taxis and cruise ships are linked via the reservation system. Saber Holding is the owner . In addition to the European competitor Amadeus , the actual operator, the subsidiary Saber Travel Network , is one of the two largest providers in this market.