JetBlue Back Up and Running

Once every 20 years of so an airline will take the plunge and upgrade their reservations system. This is a big job and has caused many airlines to fail because this is the cash register, the very heart of the business and if there are problems or even hiccups it will cause the traveling public to doubt the airline.

This weekend after 4 years of planning, JetBlue made a change from the favorite of low cost carriers, Open skies by Navitaire to the Sabre reservations system.

For most people this is supposed to be a seamless change but for the airline it is very difficult. Open Skies is hosted by the airline and is a very fast but very simple system. The big advantage to using Navitaire Open Skies is that you can get a new res agent or airport person up and running quickly and making money and sending through passengers to their destinations quickly.

Sabre on the other hand offers central hosting of records down in their bunker in Tulsa and they have the features that all airlines are looking for including code sharing. Code sharing allows an airline to move passengers and baggage to other airlines or back and mans that if you want to go from a small city in the US to a small city in Europe you can do it with 1 ticket on three airlines and four flights without having to worry about it, Sabre does it all in the background.

So now that Jet Blue has successfully make their switch I am sure we are going to hear a lot more from them on the code sharing deal front. Jet Blue could work with WestJet in Canada, KLM in Europe, China Airlines in the orient seamlessly to their passengers and this would allow the airline to put more bums in the seats and grow their service and profits a lot more quickly then they can just do on their own.

Watch this weekend as well as I believe Jet Blue is offering a lot of special deals for travle over the next couple of months.

Congratulations on your move JetBlue!