Gulf Air and Sabre hold strategic meeting

Sabre Airline Solutions and Sabre Travel Network Group President Tom Klein made his first visit to the Gulf Air headquarters, where he met with Gulf Air President and Chief Executive James Hogan before embarking on a full day of senior management meetings.

Hogan, having briefed the visiting delegation on the current status of Gulf Air, was then briefed on new developments in Sabre, which could be beneficial to Gulf Air's continued commercial success.

"There continue to be immense challenges facing the airline industry today and these require a concerted collaborative effort with specialist partners in the public and private sectors," said Hogan.

"This meeting demonstrated the strong partnership that exists between our two companies and our common goal to find ways to address the constant challenges of the competitive market."

Also on the agenda was a review of the relationship between the two companies, which extends back more than 15 years and at the beginning of 2005, took on a new shape with the formation of a joint venture based in Bahrain, called Sabre Travel Network Middle East.

Sabre Applications and a number of consultancy agreements currently being undertaken by Sabre were also discussed.

Klein said Sabre Airline Solutions, which is a leader in each of its business areas of airline products and services, reservations and departure control and consulting services, was keen to extend its expertise and pacesetting tools in order to help Gulf Air further increase revenue, streamline operations, improve workflow and raise productivity.

"The success Gulf Air has achieved in the past two years is highly commendable," he said.

"We have seen bigger, more established airlines really struggle against the backdrop of difficult conditions in the aviation and travel industry. Here we explored ways of making Gulf Air an even stronger and commercially effective airline in the years to come, by leveraging our expertise to help ensure that it has the right mix of technology and marketing services to meet its current and future business objectives."