It was during the testing phase of the Reservisor that a high-ranking IBM salesman, Blair Smith, was flying on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles back to IBM in New York in 1953. [1] He found himself sitting next to AA president C. R. Smith.[2] Noting that they shared a family name, they began talking.[3]

Just prior to this chance meeting, IBM had been working with the US Air Force on their Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) project. SAGE used a series of large computers to coordinate the message flow from radar sites to interceptors, dramatically reducing the time needed to direct an attack on an incoming bomber. The system used teletype machines located all around the world to feed information into the system, which then sent orders back out to teletypes located at the fighter bases. It was one of the first online systems.

It was not lost on either man that the basic idea of the SAGE system was perfectly suited to AA's booking needs. Teletypes would be placed at AA's ticketing offices to send in requests and receive responses directly, without the need for anyone on the other end of the phone. The number of available seats on the aircraft could be tracked automatically, and if a seat was available the ticket agent could be notified instantly. Booking simply took one more command, updating the availability and even printing out the ticket for them.

Only 30 days later IBM sent a research proposal to AA, suggesting that they really study the problem and see if an "electronic brain" could actually help. They set up a team consisting of IBM engineers and a large number of AA's staff, taken from booking, reservations and ticket sales, calling the effort the Semi-Automated Business Research Environment, or SABRE.

A formal development arrangement was signed in 1957, and the first experimental system went online in 1960, based on two IBM 7090 mainframes in a new data center located in Briarcliff Manor, New York. The system was a success. Up until this point it had cost the astonishing sum of $40 million to develop and install (about $350 million in 2000 dollars). The SABRE system by IBM in the 1960s was specified to process a very large number of transactions, such as handling 83,000 daily phone calls.[4] The system took over all booking functions in 1964, at which point the name had changed to the more familiar SABRE. [5] In 1972 the system was migrated to IBM System/360 systems in a new underground location in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Originally used only by American Airlines, the system was expanded to travel agents in 1976.

With SABRE up and running, IBM offered its expertise to other airlines, and soon developed Deltamatic for Delta Air Lines on the IBM 7074, and PANAMAC for Pan American World Airways using an IBM 7080. In 1968 they generalized their work into the PARS (Programmed Airline Reservation System), which ran on any member of the IBM System/360 family and thus could support any sized airline. This evolved into ACP (Airlines Control Program), and later to TPF (Transaction Processing Facility).

By the 1980s, SABRE offered airline reservations through the CompuServe Information Service and GEnie under the Eaasy SABRE[6][7] brand. This service was extended to America Online in the 1990s.