SOUTHLAKE, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sept. 11, 2006–Sabre Travel Network, the world’s largest and most rewarding marketplace for buying and selling travel, today announced its latest foundational elements for end-to-end corporate and leisure solutions. These broad improvements to the Sabre Air suite, including the Sabre MyFares fare management system, core pricing and shopping capabilities and customizable fare displays, are the key building blocks of an end-to-end product suite that leverages open systems technology to speed and greatly enhance shopping and pricing beyond any other GDS offering.
Sabre Travel Network remains keenly focused on revolutionizing its air shopping and booking systems to take advantage of the full content provided by our airline partners. Sabre led the industry in moving core shopping and pricing functions to open systems that enable innovation by providing far greater flexibility and speed. Now, the Sabre Air suite provides a new generation of enhanced shopping and pricing capabilities, enabling travel agents to more quickly find the best and most accurate fare options for their clients. The benefits of these new capabilities were instrumental in compelling major agencies to move business to Sabre in recent months. More broadly, all Sabre Connected agencies worldwide are being upgraded to the new system.
Sabre Air enables travel agents to quickly and easily meet their customers’ demands for the best airfares. Sabre Air finds the lowest published fares more frequently, delivers more alternative itineraries with more fare options, enables more efficient distribution of negotiated fares and prices itineraries more accurately than ever before.
A recent independent study conducted by Topaz International revealed that agents who use Sabre Air found the lowest fares as much as 21 times more often than other GDSs. In addition, when finding the lower fares, Sabre Air delivered an average of approximately 50% more in savings.
“The data from this study clearly shows that the move to open systems for shopping and pricing is delivering tangible results – the type of results that provide the differentiated service Sabre Connected travel agents and their customers expect when shopping in Sabre,” said Chris Kroeger, senior vice president for North America, Sabre Travel Network.
Another key component of Sabre’s new end-to-end foundation is Sabre MyFares. This new, state-of-the-art fare management system combines robust fare-filing capabilities with a graphical interface that enables agencies to quickly and easily load their private fares into Sabre. With Sabre MyFares, agents improve productivity and accuracy, thereby reducing the cost of managing and distributing their private fares, while at the same time improving the quality of their service to customers. By combining Sabre MyFares with Sabre’s leading low fare shopping capabilities, agents have easy access to their preferred content, as well as to the best tools to comparison shop across both published and private fares.
“Through our Efficient Access Solution, Sabre Connected travel agents gained complete and easy access to their negotiated rates, along with the full-content available in the Sabre GDS. Sabre MyFares builds upon this access, significantly streamlining the workflow of agents, particularly those who serve the corporate market where productivity and customer response times are critical,” said Kroeger.
Sabre has also introduced advanced pricing and rule display capabilities, allowing agents to ensure that they are accurately pricing itineraries while viewing the associated fare rules via customizable, simple and easy-to-interpret rule displays.
With Sabre Air’s new capabilities, Sabre Connected agents have enhanced capabilities to streamline their end-to-end air sales process, deliver even stronger value to their customers, and help further differentiate their offerings in the marketplace.
About Sabre Travel Network
Sabre Travel Network, a Sabre Holdings company, provides access to the world’s leading global distribution system (GDS). The Sabre GDS is a ready-built efficient marketplace that connects suppliers, including hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels, with more than 50,000 travel agency locations. Suppliers get access through one single connection; travel agents get real time access to thousands of travel products from multiple suppliers through one source integrated into their businesses; consumers get access to a global supermarket of the world’s greatest travel possibilities.
Key brands of Sabre Travel Network include GetThere, the leading Web-based corporate travel reservation technology, and Jurni Network, the unique leisure travel agency consortium in the United States that enables members to sell more products from preferred travel suppliers using sophisticated market intelligence.
Sabre Holdings (NYSE: TSG) connects people with the world’s greatest travel possibilities by retailing travel products and providing distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry. More information about Sabre Holdings is available at http://www.sabre-holdings.com.
CONTACT: Sabre Travel Network
Kathryn Hayden, 682-605-2252
kathryn.hayden@sabre-holdings.com
SOURCE: Sabre Travel Network
