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The Engines of Travel: GDS Explained

Booking a ticket may seem as easy as making a few clicks, but behind the scenes, there’s a decades-old system making it happen. This is the Global Distribution System, or GDS.
While the average traveler scrolls through sleek booking engines, seasoned travel agents still swear by GDS. It’s the first term you’ll have to learn if you want to become a pro at travelling.

In this post, I wanted to take a deep dive into what GDS is, why it’s so critical to the airline industry (and many others ), and why it actually matters to you.

In this post:

What is a GDS?

There’s a common perception that private jet travel is only for the ultra-wealthy, billionaires, celebrities, and royalty. While those individuals do account for a share of private aviation, the reality is a lot more nuanced.

There’s a major difference between owning a long-range private jet (like a $75 million Gulfstream G700) and occasionally chartering a smaller aircraft for a short flight.

  • Jet ownership typically requires substantial wealth. A general rule of thumb I read is that you shouldn’t consider owning a private jet unless the total cost, including purchase, maintenance, crew salaries, hanger fees, and insurance, represents 10% or less of your net worth. Ownership only begins to make financial sense if you're flying 240 hours or more per year (about 20 hours per month). At that level, the cost per hour can become more economical than consistently chartering flights or participating in a fractional ownership program.
  • Chartering on the other hand, is far more accessible. Short-haul private flights can become cost-effective, especially when split among a group, and are often used by individuals with a net worth between $5 million and $25 million, or by high-income professionals who prioritize time savings and flexibility over luxury. Depending on the size of the jet, chartering can range from $3,5000 per hour to $20,000 an hour.

Keep in mind: these are general benchmarks. Ac›tual costs vary depending on the aircraft type, flight duration, and service model. If you’re considering private aviation, it’s a smart move to consult a financial advisor to determine what makes sense for your specific situation.


Navigating a GDS means learning a specialized language of airline codes, fare buckets, booking classes, and schedule displays. Becoming fluent isn’t a weekend project either. Most agents spend six months to a year practicing daily under supervision to get it down truly. And most major airlines and hotels require onsite training for learning GDS before you even become employed.

When a travel agent searches for flight options, it’s not like they’re visiting each airline’s website separately. Instead, they’re querying from GDS, which pulls together schedules, availability, and pricing across hundreds of airlines in a few seconds.

A Brief History: Born from the Jet Age

GDS technology has its roots all the way back in the 1960s. Airlines were growing fast, and keeping track of flight bookings manually had become a logistical nightmare.

American Airlines and IBM joined forces to create SABRE (Semi-Automated Business Research Environment), which automated the reservation process. Other airlines quickly followed suit, and soon GDS networks spread across the globe.

Initially built just for flights, GDS systems eventually expanded to include hotels, rental cars, cruises, and even some event tickets. By the 1980s and 90s, GDS was the engine powering the world’s travel industry. Companies (primarily airlines) would basically upload their fares in GDS, and once posted, they could be accessed and seen by anyone who had an eligible account.

Why Travel Agents Still Use GDS (And Always Will)

Even though many airlines now encourage passengers to book directly through their websites (cutting out GDS fees in the process), GDS systems remain absolutely critical for a few reasons:

  • Business Travel: Corporate travel agencies rely heavily on GDS because it allows them to manage bookings (multiple flights, hotels, cars) in a centralized system. They can even customize fares with corporate discounts.
  • Reach: Airlines can sell seats worldwide without having to set up offices or websites in every country.
  • Real-time availability and instant ticketing: For travel agents, searching a GDS can instantly show the best options across multiple airlines — something that would take hours manually. And a well-trained agent can ticket a flight in GDS much faster than on a glitchy airline website.

Travel companies are charged every time they access the GDS, or they can buy a particular software offered by the GDS on a yearly basis. This also means the average person doesn't have access to GDS, you must have an agency ID and PIN.

The problem with GDS

GDS has been the only way for decades. But, as time passes, its biggest issues are being exposed. This is because changes and updates to the system are just built on top of the same ancient software from its inception. Think of it like your phone. There can only be so many software updates before you need a new phone, because the system itself will continually slow down.

That is what is happening with all of the GDSs, and I can tell you firsthand, it’s getting a lot slower. Right now, I mainly use Sabre (one of the 3 major GDSs), and although I love it, I’m getting impatient.

Using Sabre now feels like the last week before you upgrade your phone. You know it's slow, and you know that time is coming to an end, everything feels so packed up, and even when you think it might start working better, your hope fails. For some reason, you are tied to that phone and don't want to let it go, you might even lose all your saved data(before the iCloud era, this meant more).

The same goes for Sabre. It holds a sentimental value in the industry, but its real value is diminishing. The question is, are there any alternatives?

The Push Toward NDC: A GDS Evolution?

Like every industry tool, something new eventually comes along. Airlines are pushing customers to book direct, and some even charge extra for GDS tickets. Airlines have long chafed at the fees GDSs charge per segment. (Southwest, for example, doesn’t appear in most GDS systems at all.)

In comes NDC, or New Distribution Capability, promising richer offers, dynamic pricing, and the ability to sidestep those fees entirely, though integrating it hasn’t exactly been frictionless. Airlines argue that NDC (New Distribution Capability) allows them to show a better product. GDS companies argue that it adds complexity, so airlines like American are pushing for NDC.

For now, GDS is still on top, offering everything from fare families to interline agreements to obscure little airlines you’ve never heard of, but if you ask me, the future will probably be a hybrid.

GDS systems are adapting to work with NDC-style offers while maintaining their massive, efficient distribution networks. This is what British Airways does, offering NDC content through GDS like Sabre, and also has a dedicated NDC platform, which they can plug their fares into.

Bottom Line

GDS is one of those travel industry systems that most people never see, but without it, modern travel would be a “free for all”. From a $79 economy seat to a $15,000 first-class ticket, chances are very high that your reservation passed through a GDS somewhere along the way.

And while there's no shortage of speculation (or frustration) around its future, GDS isn’t disappearing overnight. Think of it like cable TV - still very much in use, but clearly being challenged by something leaner and more flexible. NDC is the streaming future: tailored, direct, and built around modern expectations.

The next time your travel plans come together with a few quick taps, remember: it wasn't magic.

It was decades of travel tech evolution, hidden just behind the screen.

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