Former ITA'er here who went through the Google acquisition. This news is interesting because Google's flight search, which used to be ITA Software, is/was very competitive with SABRE - it would have been impossible to imagine them working together like this in the ITA days. Additionally, many of the former ITA folks are at SABRE now.<p>I always hoped that Google would build a free GDS (global distribution system; basically a broker/layer of indirection and source of truth for travel that requires multiple unrelated carriers). SABRE makes a lot of money on their GDS; a GDS charges something like $5 US a booking, and Google was uniquely positioned to make this free (of course, free to you in exchange for knowing your travel data). It'd have been a nice thing for price-sensitive consumers... maybe it could still happen.