Computer Glitch Impacts Booking Services for Major US Airlines

Donald Wood
by Donald Wood
Last updated: 11:00 AM ET, Tue October 18, 2016

Following a temporary computer systems outage, travel software company Sabre has announced that the company has fixed the technical issue which impacted booking services for its airline partners in the United States.

According to Reuters.com, major airlines including Southwest, Virgin America and JetBlue were forced to deal with problems due to Sabre's pricing engine suffering a temporary outage Monday that wouldn't allow customers to book or modify existing reservations.

Both travel agents and customers were impacted by the inability to make or edit a reservation.

Following the computer outage, the airlines slowly began to return to fully operational. In addition to JetBlue officials telling Reuters that its services and schedules were back to normal, Southwest and Virgin America took to Twitter to confirm the outage was over:

While a return to full service is great news for air travel customers, the outage is just the latest in a long list of recent computer issues that have caused massive delays and cancellations. With the rise of electronic luggage tags and boarding passes, many experts are concerned about a rise in technical issues for the airline industry moving forward.

Every time a computer issue impacts travel for customers, airlines lose money and passengers become disenchanted with the companies. In 2016 alone, major airlines including United, Delta and British Airways have also suffered from technical issues that caused major problems for each company.


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Donald Wood

Donald Wood

Managing Editor

Donald Wood is TravelPulse’s Managing Editor, bringing nearly 15 years of experience to the desk. He currently lives outside Philadelphia with his wife and two children.

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