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Travel & Hospitality · Recorded milestone

Computer reservation system

Recorded year1960

American Airlines and IBM's SABRE starts booking seats by computer, the root of today's travel booking systems.

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Built on

Stored-program computerRecorded · 1948enables
Jet airlinerRecorded · 1952enables
Hard disk driveRecorded · 1956requires
SAGE air defenceRecorded · 1958enables

Led to

Frequent-flyer programmeRecorded · 1981enables
Electronic airline ticketRecorded · 1994enables
Online travel bookingRecorded · 1996enables

Sources & evidence

Additional source

Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.