Sabre has described the third quarter as a turning point for the company.
The distribution giant reported a 12% increase in third quarter revenue to $740 million alongside adjusted EBITDA of $110 million compared with $34 million year over year.
Net loss attributable to shareholders was $212 million, up from $141 million year over year, while operating income came in at $52 million compared with a loss of $57 million in Q3 2022.
The net loss increase was driven by increased hospitality transaction costs as well as incentive costs in the travel solutions business. Gains in operating income were attributed to a number of elements, including lower labor costs driven by the cost reduction plan and lower technology costs explained by mainframe offloads and data migrations.
At the beginning of the year Sabre announced a repositioning and cost reduction plan, including the loss of 15% of employees.
At the time the company said the restructure would cost the company $50 million in 2023 and $20 million in 2024.
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Kurt Ekert, president and CEO of Sabre, said, ”We believe the third quarter was an important turning point for Sabre. We delivered financial results that exceeded expectations including double-digit revenue growth, significant margin expansion and cost actions that resulted in strong free cash flow generation in the quarter. We also announced agreements with new and existing customers and key technology partners that enable us to continue delivering next-generation retailing solutions, including NDC, and to provide a richer traveler experience by enabling more personalized offers and broader access to content.”
Revenue for Sabre’s travel solutions business increased 11% to $672 million, attributed to an increase in air and other travel bookings. Distribution revenue rose 22% to $525 million.
IT solutions’ revenue declined 15% to $157 million in the quarter, which the company put down to a decrease in passengers boarded.
Revenue for the hospitality solutions business increased 16% to $79 million driven by an increase in central reservation system transactions and new customer deployments.
In July, Sabre announced that Hyatt was adopting its central reservation system following an agreement between the two companies. The SynXis CRS is to become the main reservation system for Hyatt properties beginning next year.