Google and SABRE partner to build travel tech

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.