JetBlue Finishes Converting to Sabre Reservation System

(MoneyWatch)  Ladies and gentlemen, I now present JetBlue and its new wife (aka reservation system), Sabre. Over the weekend, the two officially tied the knot when JetBlue's divorce from Navitaire was finalized. The transition so far has been going very well. If this holds, it will set the standard for how to switch systems.

You might think I'm overstating things by calling this a marriage, but an airline and its reservation system are so entwined that it really is one of the most important relationships you'll find in this industry. JetBlue, having seen some of the pain previous airlines had experienced when they changed, took a lot of precautions. They've staffed up and they were system-less over the weekend to make sure everything was focused on the change.

They gave even more information on their internal blog about how they were preparing for the Sabre changeover. On Saturday morning, they pre-canceled 56 flights and capped the rest of them at only a 40 percent load factor. January 31 was capped at 60 percent. This not only gave them the ability to keep passenger numbers down at the airport, but it also allowed them some flexibility if people missed flights due to long waits.

But by all accounts, things are going well. Everyone from the front line to execs were out at the airports in shifts helping out. A secondary call center was opened to help with non-reservation calls so that the reservation agents could focus on people with bookings. They figured it would take longer to do in the beginning so they wanted to add some slack to the process.

For what it's worth, the website was up on schedule by mid-day Saturday. I went as far as I could to make a booking without actually paying for it and the system worked as advertised. So far so good.

Lines at airports haven't been too bad, and the airline is now back up again to full strength in terms of flights and passenger loads. Very nice job, JetBlue.