Sabre reported a net loss of $266 million for the quarter.
First quarter 2021 business overview:
• Bookings environment improved with a 15 percentage point sequential improvement from January to March in Sabre's net bookings versus 2019, despite the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Strongest improvement was in North American air bookings and global hotel bookings
• Progressed with NDC initiatives and achieved NDC Level 4 certification as an IT Provider, confirming ability to support full offer and order management capabilities
• Completed migration of Travel Solutions Agency Air Shopping to Google Cloud, first of three technology milestones planned this year
• Advanced other aspects of technology transformation with set up of Google Cloud environments in two out of four global regions for Hospitality Solutions CRS and completed offloads of several compute-heavy mainframe capabilities
• Ended the quarter with cash balance of $1.3 billion
First quarter 2021 summary:
• First quarter revenue totaled $327 million
• Net loss attributable to common stockholders of $266 million and net loss attributable to common stockholders per share of $0.84
• Adjusted EPS totaled ($0.72)
• All metrics were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, partially offset by variable cost relief and the effect of cost saving actions
Travel Solutions
First quarter 2021 results (versus prior year):
• Travel Solutions revenue decreased 52% to $289 million due to the unprecedented disruption in travel driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Operating loss totaled $105 million, versus operating loss of $10 million in the first quarter of 2020. The decline in operating income was driven by the reduction in revenue driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, partially offset by lower incentive expenses, a $40 million decrease in the provision for expected credit losses, reduced headcount-related expenses resulting from the effect of cost saving actions and a decline in technology costs.
• Distribution revenue decreased 62% to $152 million due to lower bookings volume and a decline in average booking fee due to a shift in bookings mix.
▪ The booking environment steadily improved over the quarter.
▪ Gross air bookings declined 82%, 77% and 69% in January, February and March versus the same months in 2019, respectively.
▪ Net air bookings declined 81%, 76% and 66% in January, February and March versus the same months in 2019, respectively.
• IT Solutions revenue decreased 36% to $137 million. Reservations revenue decreased 48%, and Commercial and Operations revenue decreased 29%, primarily driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hospitality Solutions
First quarter 2021 results (versus prior year):
• Hospitality Solutions revenue decreased 29% to $42 million.
• Central reservation system transactions declined 16% to 18 million.
• Operating loss was $14 million, versus operating loss of $16 million in the first quarter of 2020. The increase in operating results was primarily due to decreased depreciation and amortization, a decline in transaction-based costs and reduced headcount-related expenses resulting from the effect of cost saving actions, partially offset by the decline in revenue driven by lower CRS transactions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Business Outlook
Given the ongoing magnitude and the uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic effects, Sabre has not given guidance at this time.
