I've heard there are only two back-end solutions for airfare search. Does this mean I only need to search on two different sites?

6/24/2016 5:36:25 AM

Short answer: No, that’s not the case.

I think what you’ve heard was a little mangled in the telling. There are indeed only three large airline Global Distribution Systems (GDS), which are the systems where both tariffs (prices) and reservations are created, stored and accessed. These are Travelport (Galileo/Apollo/Worldspan), Amadeus and Sabre, the last of which you mentioned. Even these aren’t quite universal though, as many low-cost airlines like Ryanair and Air Asia don’t participate.

However, flight search is the next layer on top of this, which attempts to find the best flights and fares in these GDSes. This is a notoriously complicated problem that continues to elude a single winner, and since anybody can purchase a GDS subscription and start doing searches, lots of startups do. So while the GDSes have their homegrown pricing systems, there are also third-party competitors like QPX (one of the most popular packages for doing this), some of the big boys like Expedia roll their own, and then there’s a whole slew of startups like Rome2Rio, Adioso and Hipmunk that all attempt to find some edge: Rome2Rio mixes in trains and buses, Adioso lets you do really wide-open searches and combine with LCCs, Hipmunk factors in the “pain” of the itinerary etc.

6/24/2016 1:32:45 AM

No, it isn’t and it was never. And they won’t tell who uses what.

Several airlines don’t participate in any of those systems, but force all sales through their own system (example: Southwest).

They have obviously some disadvantages from that, but also some advantages; they think it is the better solution.

Google’s ITA (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/) or Google’s direct flight search (https://www.google.com/flights/#search, very fast) are generic and touch nearly all airlines (including Southwest, etc.), but you cannot book there – once you see the cheapest or you preferred offer, you need to go to that airline to book it.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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