Sabre Travel Network signs with two major European airlines

Both airlines will give Sabre Connected agents full access to their entire range of fares. Sabre has also announced recent agreements with two major US carriers, Northwest Airlines and US Airways.

The deal with Virgin Atlantic gives Sabre Connected travel agents full access to the airline's full range of published fares and inventory. This ensures that the same fares and availability offered through Virgin Atlantic's direct reservation outlets, including Virgin Flightstore, Virgin Holidays and the airline's Internet sites, are also available to Sabre Connected agents.

Similarly, the agreement with SAS means the airline will make all its published fares and inventory, including its web-only fares, available in the Sabre GDS. The agreement, which runs until 2007, also covers full access to fares and inventory from Wideroes, the Norwegian regional carrier owned by SAS.

In the past month Sabre has also signed separate full content deals with two of the 'Big Six' US carriers; US Airways and Northwest Airlines. Details of these agreements are:

• Full access to all US Airways published fares and inventory, whether flown under the America West or US Airways brands, including web fares. This includes the published fares that the US's largest full-service, low-cost airline sells through any third-party web site, and through its own web site and reservation offices. US Airways, the fifth-largest US domestic airline, also signed a new long-term full content deal with Travelocity, which includes the Travelocity Partner Network, Travelocity's private label booking business, as its exclusive hotel content supplier for the US Airways web site.

• Full access to all Northwest Airlines published fares and inventory, including web fares. The agreement builds further on the previous long-term content agreement that Travelocity and Northwest, the world's fifth-largest airline, signed to ensure that all Northwest fares and inventory are available through Travelocity.

Richard Adams, Sabre Travel Network's senior vice president in EMEA, said:

"Signing these agreements with two European and two US carriers is a fantastic start to 2006. It also reflects Sabre's unique ability to bring additional distribution value to airlines through our ownership of companies in every channel of travel sales and distribution. This gives travel providers, travel agents, corporations and individual travellers the most efficient, comprehensive, global and real-time electronic supermarket for the buying and selling of travel."