Worldspan (CRS)
Worldspan is an American company founded on February 7, 1990 by Northwest Airlines , Delta Air Lines and the former Trans World Airlines with headquarters in Atlanta .
It was created on the basis of an agreement between the airlines to combine their previous computer reservation systems DATAS II from Delta Air Lines and PARS from Trans World Airlines into one system. In 1993 the operations center in Atlanta was fully operational. The mainframe there is the size of two soccer fields and processes the requests in real time .
The company now has more than two thousand employees and has branches in South America and Canada. The German branch is located in Frankfurt am Main . Worldspan, one of the four major global reservation systems (alongside Amadeus , Saber and Galileo ), was sold to a US investment company on June 30, 2003. On August 21, 2007, Travelport Inc. , which also includes Worldspan's competitor Galileo, took over Worldspan and began to merge the two reservation systems.
Online travel agencies such as Expedia or Orbitz use the computer reservation system to book flights, hotels or other services.
Working method in the travel agency
In order to establish a connection to the computer system, the users needed a secure line, for example via a dedicated line or an encrypted Internet connection. Since leased lines are associated with considerable costs and effort, there is an increasing trend towards encrypted communication over the Internet. Each agency is assigned a three-digit alphanumeric code (called SID) that contains a pool of addresses for end devices such as computers or printers for ATB2 or e-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.
A Passenger Name Record is created for each passenger , which is saved in the system.
Example: Result of the availability request for a flight from Frankfurt to New York on December 15, 2006 .
