Sabre recorded a revenue increase of over 400% in the second quarter of 2021, as activity picked up after travel restrictions eased in a number of the tech giant's core markets.
The U.S.-based company posted a revenue figure of $420 million for the three-month period April to June 2021 and $747 million for the first six months of the year.
Revenues for Sabre in the second quarter of 2019 were $1 billion, an indication of how far the distribtion and tech supplier still has to go before investors will acknowledge that a recovery will hit pre-pandemic levels.
Adjusted EBITDA came in at a loss of $70 million after an improvement on the $229 million loss in the corresponding quarter on 2020.
Sabre's travel solutions division found itself with a 564% increase in revenue from a lockdown-hit $56 million in Q2 2020 to $373 million between April and June this year.
Within that unit, distribution (GDS) revenues were $218 million and IT (hosting etc.) were $155 mllion, increases year-over-year from $48 million and $51 million respectively.
The sister division serving hospitality tech increased by 75% to $51 million year-over-year.
Bookings through the GDS were at 57 million in Q2 2021, down by 60% on the same period in 2019.
The uptick in bookings is coming from the company's U.S. domestic customer base, primarily in the leisure arena.
Passengers boarded reached 104 million in the latest financial period - a figure down 43% from 2019 but up from the 20 million in the same period in 2020.
Sean Menke, president and CEO at Sabre, says: "As the industry recovers from COVID-19, travel volume trends continued to improve across Distribution, IT Solutions and Hospitality Solutions. In the second quarter, recovery trends accelerated and showed the strongest sequential improvement since the third quarter of 2020.
"The strongest recovery remains in U.S. domestic leisure bookings. Since North America is our largest region, our bookings recovery outpaced the overall GDS industry. We continue to believe there is pent up demand for travel and that recovery will accelerate."