Full offer-order migration is "unlikely to happen on the order side" by 2030, Sabre CEO Kurt Ekert told analysts during an earnings call on Thursday morning.
Ekert was addressing a question about Sabre's Mosaic solution and the appetite from airlines for an offer-order solution. The CEO said Sabre is seeing "significant demand" for its modular solution, largely from the offer side.
"The order side is a little bit slower going as airlines are really focused again on near-term revenue and margin optimization versus longer-term projects. So, the IATA projection of full offer-order migration by 2030—it's unlikely to happen on the order side. It's going to take longer," Ekert said.
"We announced that we have either implemented or will be implementing four new carriers this calendar year. In a couple of cases, those are actually full conversions of both PSS and offer-order. But again, for the most part, most airlines don't want to do a PSS-to-PSS migration. If they're going to do a large platform migration, they want it to be onto offer-order from their legacy PSS."
Ekert also addressed current developments with agentic artificial intelligence (AI), echoing previous statements about Sabre's potential to benefit.
"What you've seen from most of the large LLM platforms to date is testing as they try to figure out their commercial model, and most of them still remain more focused on enterprise than consumer opportunity," Ekert said.
"The feedback that we've gotten from them is they're seeking an end-to-end agent experience where the consumer or the corporate traveler would do a search, shopping, booking, fulfillment, full servicing and change, et cetera."
Asked how AI's increase in look-to-book ratios would affect compute costs, Ekert said Sabre caches between 80% and 90% of queries that come through its system.
"We're able to rely on the data we have, and therefore, the efficiency from a compute standpoint for us is much better than it would be in the absence of having that data," he said.
"How this will come to market commercially, meaning will you charge for compute or activity? Will you charge for bookings? I think it's still very early to say so. What we're seeking is to get our fair share of wallet. We think the commercial opportunity is going to be very compelling."
While Ekert said that AI presents growth opportunities, AI contributions are not factored into Sabre's 2027 expectations of mid-single-digit volume and revenue growth.
Sabre reported revenue of $738 million in Q3, a 3% year-over-year increase, and operating income of $109 million, up 17% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $164 million, up 16% from Q3 2025.
While air bookings fell 1%, the global distribution system saw 14% hotel-related revenue growth and hotel attach rates of greater than 35%. Ekert attributed growth to the addition of incremental inventory and upgrading its connectivity solutions.
Sabre raised its full-year pro forma adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow guidance, its second consecutive quarterly increase. It reaffirmed full-year guidance for low-to-mid-single-digit growth in revenue and air marketplace bookings.