Our history
Redefining travel commerce for over 40 years
Travelport was created as a broad-based business services provider to the global travel industry in 2006; however, our roots in travel trace back to 1971 with the introduction of one of the world’s first computerized airline reservation systems (CRS). These systems evolved into global distribution systems (GDS) and today serve airlines and many other types of travel providers, as well as travel agencies, corporations and developers worldwide.
It was United Airlines that introduced the Apollo CRS in 1971. Fifteen years later, Apollo Travel Services became an independent affiliate of United and was rebranded as Covia™. In 1987, Covia sold a 50 percent stake in its business to a group of European airlines and with this transaction the global Galileo partnership was formed. Galileo listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1997 and was acquired by Cendant Corporation in 2001.
In 2006, the newly formed independent group went on to make strategic acquisitions to reinforce Travelport’s value proposition to the global travel industry and enhance its industry leading platforms and technologies. Pivotal acquisitions included the Worldspan GDS in 2007 and metasearch engine Sprice™ in 2010. In 2009, Travelport became a joint venture partner in eNett™, a leading provider of integrated payment solutions for the travel industry.
In May 2011, we completed the sale of our Gulliver’s Travel Associates (“GTA”) business.
July 2011 saw a shift in our corporate strategy to focus on the trends, inefficiencies and unmet needs of all components of the travel value chain. At that time, we defined a new five-year strategy to transform our business from a traditional GDS to a next generation travel commerce platform.
In 2013 we launched our highly-differentiated Travelport Merchandising Platform consisting of three distinct solutions—Travelport Aggregated Shopping, Travelport Ancillary Services and Travelport Rich Content and Branding.
Our strategy is built on five pillars: unrivalled content, empowered selling, transforming payments, open platform and new business frontiers. Access Our pillars to learn more.