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Sabre reservation system crash might affect 300 airlines worldwide

Compensation for such breakdowns is stipulated in Sabre's contracts with clients but the Aeroflot representative declined to comment, citing a "commercial secret"
Photo ITAR-TASS/Alexei Filippov
Photo ITAR-TASS/Alexei Filippov

MOSCOW, August 6 (Itar-Tass) - The 90-minute outage of the Sabre global reservation system on August 6 might affect over 300 airlines and more than 100 airports worldwide who are all users of the Sabre Airline Solutions software.

Company officials have not yet released any reports on the scope of consequences caused by the crash. International mass media outlets reported problems in American Airlines, Jet Blue and United Airlines. British Airways delayed flights at Johannesburg airport and Alaska Airlines delayed about 50 flights.

Virgin Australia, which installed Sabre in January 2013 after giving up the Navitaire counterpart, had to register passengers manually. Russia’s Aeroflot also had to resort to manual registration. The Russian flag carrier announced Sabre-related problems at 08:53 Moscow time. The system went back online after 10:00, Moscow time. "The delays were not long," the company's press service told Itar-Tass.

Compensation for such breakdowns is stipulated in Sabre's contracts with clients but the Aeroflot representative declined to comment, citing a "commercial secret."

Sabre Airline Solutions is a division of Sabre Holdings. It includes Sabre Travel Network, that provides software for the Global Distribution System /GDS/. Sabre offers reservations in tourism business linking more than 400 airlines, 93,000 hotels, 50 railway companies and 13 cruise lines, the company's website said.

There has been no information about the consequences of the Sabre Travel Network breakdown yet.