In 1946, American Airlines installe

In 1946, American Airlines installed the first automated electromechanical booking sys- tem on an experimental basis. Newer machines, with tempo- rary storage based on magnetic drums, followed soon after. The systems proved successful and were soon being used by several airlines. However, they were seriously hampered by the need for local human operators to do the actual lookups, and ticketing agents had to make calls to the booking office. In 1953, remote terminals were invented, but the first joint system was not launched until 1959: SABRE. In the follow- ing years, several competing systems came about, and in 1976, travel agencies were given access to the systems. CRS increased the transparency dramatically for the customers. The most recent development gives customers access to book reservations themselves, a development that has led to a dramatic decline in travel agencies.