CRS summary history
 

In the mid-1970s, some airlines saw opportunity in extending the capabilities of their internal reservations systems to travel agencies, giving agencies their first automated means of creating airline reservations electronically. The outgrowth of airline systems into the agency environment gave birth to the computer reservations system (CRS) industry-the world's first networked infrastructure for electronic commerce.

Airlines also began selling their CRS services to other airlines that did not have the critical mass to install their own reservations system in travel agencies. This enabled non-system owning airlines to electronically distribute their services to automated agencies. By the late 1980s, nearly 100 percent of US travel agencies were automated by these systems, and the CRS had become the primary vehicle through which thousands of air and non-air travel suppliers distributed and sold their products and services.

Because only a handful of airlines had originally developed their own internal automation and seized the opportunity to sell their systems to travel agencies and other airlines, competitive issues quickly arose as to whether it was viable for hundreds of airlines to pay to participate in systems that were operated by only a few dominant CRSs-all of which were fierce competitors, and which were owned by competing airlines.

Consequently, US and EU authorities introduced rules in the 1980s and 1990s to ensure that these airline-owned systems could not discriminate against each other, against airlines, or travel agencies. A key purpose of these rules was to ensure CRS business practices did not distort airline competition between system-owning and non-owning airlines. Furthermore, these rules required that information offered through CRSs be objective and unbiased and that participation in each CRS be open to all carriers on a non-discriminatory basis. The rules also required that information and booking functions provided for each airline be as reliable and current as they were for the owner airline, a provision known as "equal functionality."