- July 26, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
Southwest Airlines is ready to make the biggest push for business customers in the company’s history with a distribution deal with Southlake-based Sabre Corp. that started Monday.
Dallas-based Southwest, which has long been reluctant to share revenue with third-party companies when it sells tickets, went live on Sabre’s global distribution platforms Monday.
That means thousands of business travel planners will see Southwest routes pop up on their screens when booking trips for employees instead of having to compare on Southwest’s own website.
Sabre controls about 75% market for the systems that large corporations use to book travel for employees.
It’s a major play for Southwest as it tries to navigate out of the pandemic that has walloped the lucrative business travel customer segment. Business travelers make up about 30% of airline passengers, and business travel tends to be more profitable than leisure travel because tickets are often bought…
