Galileo traces its roots back to 1971 when
United Airlines created its first computerized central reservation system under the name Apollo. During the 1980s and early 1990s, a significant proportion of airline tickets were sold by travel agents. Flights by the airline owning the reservation system had preferential display on the computer screen. Due to the high market penetration of the
Sabre and
Apollo systems, owned by
American Airlines and United Airlines, respectively,
Worldspan and Galileo were created by other airline groups in an attempt to gain market share in the computer reservation system market and, by inference, the commercial airline market. Galileo was formed in 1987 by nine European carriers --
British Airways,
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines,
Alitalia,
Swissair,
Austrian Airlines,
Olympic,
Sabena,
Air Portugal and
Aer Lingus. In response and to prevent possible government intervention, United Airlines spun off its Apollo reservation system, which was then controlled by Covia. Galileo International was born when Covia acquired Europe's Galileo and merged it with the Apollo system in 1992. which was the world's first multi-access reservations system using the technology developed by
Videcom.
Travicom was a company launched by
Videcom,
British Airways,
British Caledonian and CCL in 1976 which in 1988 became Galileo UK.
Developments •
Travel Agents now also book
Amtrak Rail on the system and issue the tickets directly. •
Southwest Airlines has entered into a marketing agreement with Apollo/Galileo and travel agents are now able to book reservations on Southwest. These direct connects offer the possibility to sell ancillary services and to differentiate oneself from the competition. • The development team at Travelport has developed an online search tool called ASK Travelport where registered users can go and find out the answers to their frequently asked questions and queries. ==See also==