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Travelport

Type	Private
Industry	Travel technology
Founded	2001 (United States)
Headquarters	Atlanta, USA
Key people	Jeff Clarke, Non-Executive Chairman; Gordon Wilson, President and CEO; Philip Emery, CFO; Eric Bock, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel; Kurt Ekert, Chief Commercial Officer
Revenue	US$ 4.0 billion annually
Employees	Approximately 3, 500
Parent	The Blackstone Group
Subsidiaries	Travelport (includes Apollo, Galileo and Worldspan), Travelport Airline IT Solutions, THOR
Website	www.Travelport.com

Travelport is a broad-based business services company and a provider of critical transaction processing solutions^{[clarification needed]} to companies operating in the global travel industry. The company is composed of the global distribution system (GDS) business, that includes the Apollo, Worldspan and Galileo brands, and Airline IT Solutions, which hosts mission critical applications and provides business and data analysis solutions for major airlines. With reported 2011 net revenue of $2.0 billion, Travelport has a presence in over 170 countries and approximately 3,500 employees. Travelport also owns approximately 48% of Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW), a global online travel company.

Travelport is a privately owned company, headquartered in Atlanta, USA.

History [edit]

Travelport traces its origins back to 1971, but its most immediate predecessor, Travel Distribution Services (TDS), was founded in 2001 through the acquisition of Galileo International by TDS's parent, Cendant Corporation. Travelport was formed in August 2006, when Cendant sold Orbitz and Galileo to The Blackstone Group in a deal valued at $4.3 billion.

In April 2006, shortly before Travelport was sold, Cendant hired Jeff Clarke as president and CEO of Travel Distribution Services to lead the sale of the division. He is currently Non-Executive Chairman and a member of the board of directors of Travelport and chairman of the board of Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. Gordon Wilson was appointed President and CEO of the company and a member of the board of directors of Travelport in June 2011.

Shortly after the Blackstone-led buyout, in December 2006, Travelport struck a deal to buy one of its rivals, Worldspan, for $1.4 billion.^[1]

In March 2007, cash flow had risen substantially, in part because of efficiencies initiated by Clarke, and Travelport's parent company, Travelport Holdings Limited, paid a $1.1 billion dividend to its shareholders funded by a payment-in-kind (PIK) recapitalization of the company. In May 2007 the company filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell a portion of Orbitz Worldwide in an initial public offering (IPO). The IPO was priced on July 20, 2007, opening at $15.00 per share, and closed on July 25, 2007. A month later, Travelport completed the Worldspan deal, integrating Worldspan with Galileo.

By combining operations with Worldspan and streamlining overlapping functions that Travelport had inherited from a string of more than 20 earlier mergers under Cendant, Travelport cut its overhead by $390 million in three years and doubled its cash flow.^[2]

On September 19, 2007, Travelport became the first travel company to receive a 100 percent rating on the sixth annual Corporate Equality Index awarded by the American Human Rights Campaign Foundation.^[3] Worldspan achieved the 100 percent rating on HRC's Corporate Equality Index in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.

On May 5, 2011, Travelport completed the $720m sale of its GTA business to Kuoni, in line with its strategic plan to focus on maximizing the potential of its core business.

Brands [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Travelport website
• Travelport ViewTrip, public site for viewing reservations made through Travelport/Galileo
• Galileo
• Travelport Opinions, Travel Agent Social Network