American Airlines' "Sabre" electronic reservations system

The American Airlines Sabre System, a joint development of American Airlines and IBM, is a major step into the field of total data processing. This system is designed to solve the problems confronting the airlines in passenger sales, seat inventory control, and maintenance and retrieval of passenger records. After six years of joint effort, a complex of programs and hardware has been developed which will be the largest commercial data processing system in existence. At the heart of this duplexed system are two IBM 7090's. At the extremeties are agent consoles built to American Airlines specifications. This system will automate all of the daily reservations processes with the exception of the vital agent-customer contact. The Sabre System will give, in addition to the obvious customer advantages, the availability of current, detailed and summarized data for the use of American Airlines' management in their constant endeavor to improve passenger service.