
Google and SABRE partner to build travel tech - adam_gyroscope
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-21/google-reaches-10-year-deal-on-cloud-travel-with-sabre
======
adam_gyroscope
Former ITA'er here who went through the Google acquisition. This news is
interesting because Google's flight search, which used to be ITA Software,
is/was very competitive with SABRE - it would have been impossible to imagine
them working together like this in the ITA days. Additionally, many of the
former ITA folks are at SABRE now.

I always hoped that Google would build a free GDS (global distribution system;
basically a broker/layer of indirection and source of truth for travel that
requires multiple unrelated carriers). SABRE makes a lot of money on their
GDS; a GDS charges something like $5 US a booking, and Google was uniquely
positioned to make this free (of course, free to you in exchange for knowing
your travel data). It'd have been a nice thing for price-sensitive
consumers... maybe it could still happen.

