Skift Take
Spirit's decision to buy more airline technology from Sabre signals two things. Sabre has overcome a sales slump. And Spirit is investing to cope with its growth.
Budget airline Spirit Airlines last week bought more airline technology from Sabre, signaling that the tech vendor's sales team is abandoning its defensive mode. Texas-based Sabre is now seeking an increased wallet share of existing customers.
The trend is a turnabout. For years, carriers complained about Sabre's tech. The tools aim to help airlines with operations, such as recovering when storms or mechanical failures cause flight cancellations.
Spirit, a Florida-based carrier, has long been managing its operations with Sabre's products. But like many airlines, Spirit wanted fixes.
"The tech was great in its day if you will," said Rocky Wiggins, chief information officer of Spirit Airlines.
"But the speed with which airlines need to make decisions and tune the operation is ever increasing," said Wiggins. "So, as an industry, we're always looking for improvements."
Many airline executives became jaded with Sabre's reliability and innovativeness in recent years.
In January 2017, Sean Menke became CEO. He decided the products needed an overhaul.
Menke hired Dave Shirk to lead the effort.
"Quite candidly, we were having some outages and some product issues," said
