Editing Computer reservation system (section)

=== Travel agent access ===
In 1976, United Airlines began offering its Apollo system to travel agents; while it would not allow the agents to book tickets on United's competitors, the marketing value of the convenient terminal proved indispensable. SABRE, PARS, and DATAS were soon released to travel agents as well. Following [[Airline Deregulation Act|airline deregulation]] in 1978, an efficient CRS proved particularly important; by some counts, [[Texas Air]] executive [[Frank Lorenzo]] purchased money-losing [[Eastern Air Lines]] specifically to gain control of its SystemOne CRS.

Also in 1976 [[Videcom international]] with [[British Airways]], [[British Caledonian]] and CCL launched [[Travicom]], the world's first multi-access reservations system (wholly based on Videcom technology), forming a network providing distribution for initially two and subsequently 49 subscribing international airlines (including British Airways, British Caledonian, [[Trans World Airlines]], [[Pan Am]], [[Qantas]], [[Singapore Airlines]], [[Air France]], [[Lufthansa]], [[Scandinavian Airlines System]], [[Air Canada]], [[KLM]], [[Alitalia]], [[Cathay Pacific]] and [[Japan Airlines]]) to thousands of travel agents in the UK. It allowed agents and airlines to communicate via a common distribution language and network, handling 97% of UK airline business trade bookings by 1987. The system went on to be replicated by Videcom in other areas of the world including the Middle East (DMARS), New Zealand, Kuwait (KMARS), Ireland, Caribbean, United States and Hong Kong. Travicom was a trading name for Travel Automation Services Ltd. When British Airways (who by then owned 100% of Travel Automation Services Ltd) chose to participate in the development of the Galileo system Travicom changed its trading name to Galileo UK and a migration process was put in place to move agencies from Travicom to Galileo.

European airlines also began to invest in the field in the 1980s initially by deploying their own reservation systems in their homeland, propelled by growth in demand for travel as well as technological advances which allowed GDSes to offer ever-increasing services and searching power. In 1987, a consortium led by Air France and West Germany's Lufthansa developed [[Amadeus (computer system)|Amadeus]], modeled on SystemOne. Amadeus Global Travel Distribution was launched in 1992. In 1990, Delta, [[Northwest Airlines]], and Trans World Airlines formed [[Worldspan]], and in 1993, another consortium (including British Airways, KLM, and [[United Airlines]], among others) formed the competing company [[Galileo GDS]] based on Apollo. Numerous smaller companies such as KIU have also formed, aimed at niche markets not catered for by the four largest networks, including the [[low-cost carrier]] segment, and small and medium size domestic and regional airlines.