Editing Computer reservation system (section)

=== Remote access ===
In 1953 [[Trans-Canada Airlines]] (TCA) started investigating a computer-based system with remote [[Computer terminal|terminals]], testing one design on the [[University of Toronto]]'s [[Ferranti Mark 1]] machine that summer. Though successful, the researchers found that input and output was a major problem. [[Ferranti Canada]] became involved in the project and suggested a new system using [[punched card]]s and a [[transistor]]ized computer in place of the unreliable [[Vacuum tube|tube]]-based Mark I. The resulting system, [[ReserVec]], started operation in 1962, and took over all booking operations in January 1963. Terminals were placed in all of TCA's ticketing offices, allowing all queries and bookings to complete in about one second with no remote operators needed.

In 1953 American Airlines [[chief executive officer|CEO]] [[C. R. Smith]] chanced to sit next to R. Blair Smith, a senior [[IBM]] sales representative, on a flight from [[Los Angeles International Airport|Los Angeles]] to [[John F. Kennedy International Airport|New York]]. C.R. invited Blair to visit their Reservisor system and look for ways that IBM could improve the system. Blair alerted [[Thomas Watson Jr.]] that American was interested in a major collaboration, and a series of low-level studies started. Their idea of an automated [[airline reservations system|airline reservation system]] (ARS) resulted in a 1959 venture known as the [[Sabre (computer system)|Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment]] (SABRE), launched the following year.<ref>R. Blair Smith, OH 34. Oral history interview by Robina Mapstone, May 1980. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/display.phtml?id=9 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020816141010/http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/display.phtml?id=9 |date=2002-08-16 }}</ref> By the time the network was completed in December 1964, it was the largest civil [[data processing]] system in the world.

Other airlines established their own systems. [[Pan Am]] launched its PANAMAC system in 1964. [[Delta Air Lines]] launched the Delta Automated Travel Account System (DATAS) in 1968. [[United Airlines]] and [[Trans World Airlines]] followed in 1971 with the [[Apollo Reservation System]] and [[Programmed Airline Reservation System]] (PARS), respectively. Soon, travel agents began pushing for a system that could automate their side of the process by accessing the various ARSes directly to make reservations. Fearful this would place too much power in the hands of agents, American Airlines executive [[Robert Crandall]] proposed creating an industry-wide computer reservation system to be a central clearing house for U.S. travel; other airlines demurred, citing fear that [[United States antitrust law]] may have been breached.