How UK Travel Agents Use Galileo & Amadeus (GDS Guide)

The UK travel market has its own GDS landscape, shaped by history and by which systems British consolidators, retail chains and host agencies plugged into early on. Galileo and Amadeus are the two names most British agents mention, but the more useful question is how a particular UK agency ends up on one of them, and what a new agent or small business should do about it. This guide covers the history, the public deals that show how switching happens, the realistic access routes and a framework for choosing.

Why Galileo Has Deep UK Roots

The UK link goes back to the 1970s. Travicom, a UK booking network backed by Videcom, British Airways, British Caledonian and CCL, launched in 1976 and became Galileo UK in 1988, a year after nine European airlines (including British Airways, KLM, Alitalia and Swissair) formed Galileo as a consortium. In 1992 Galileo merged with United Airlines' Apollo operation, and Galileo later became part of Travelport, which also owns Worldspan. Travelport's UK headquarters is in Langley, Berkshire. That heritage means many long-established UK agencies and consolidators built their workflows and staff training around Galileo, and plenty of experienced consultants still reach for its command style.

This history has a practical consequence for anyone hiring or being hired. A consultant who spent a decade at a Galileo-based agency carries habits and shortcuts that do not map one-to-one onto Amadeus, and the reverse is also true. That is why UK job adverts often name the system, and why experienced agents moving between employers are usually given a few weeks of overlap and a command-translation sheet rather than an assumption of instant fluency.

Amadeus in the UK Market

Amadeus was founded by European airlines in 1987 and is the largest GDS globally, with a strong footprint across Europe, including the UK. It markets Selling Platform Connect as its agent desktop, and it has a dedicated programme for small and medium agencies. Agencies with ties to European or international booking operations, or whose clients fly heavily to Europe, the Middle East and Asia, often find Amadeus attractive, though that is a tendency rather than a rule.

Evidence That Switching Happens

Two public examples show that UK agencies change platform when the commercial case changes. In November 2012 the independent retail chain Hays Travel announced it was moving from Amadeus to Travelport. The vendor pitched its Smartpoint desktop, which translates commands so agents trained on one system can move to another more easily. In 2009 Travel Counsellors, a network of home-based agents, signed a multi-year agreement with Travelport for Galileo, when it had about 1,000 agents running their own businesses. Both are old now, and agreements get renewed, so use them to understand the pattern rather than as a current map.

The picture is also not exclusive. In a 2019 UK Competition and Markets Authority inquiry, a UK travel agent said it used Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport together to widen its selection of offers, because some airlines are not on every GDS. It added that once an agent knows one system, learning another is not difficult. The published hearing summary is on the UK government website.

Choosing Between Them as a UK Agent

Factor	Favours Galileo (Travelport)	Favours Amadeus
Legacy relationships	Long UK history; public deals with large UK agencies and networks	Strong European base and a dedicated small and medium agency programme
Skills portability	Experienced UK staff often know it; desktop tools can translate commands	Widely used across Europe and globally
Contract holder	Usually the host, network or employer	Usually the host, network or employer
What to test	Your own top routes and ticketing queues	Your own top routes and ticketing queues

Content depth claims are marketing until you test them. Vendors publish headline airline counts, but the number that matters is how your own carriers and fare types appear on each system.

How UK Agents Actually Get Access

As elsewhere, vendors contract with businesses rather than individuals. A UK agent typically gets a GDS in one of four ways.

1. Employee of a retail chain or business travel agency. The employer holds the contract and trains you.
2. Independent agent under a host or network. Home-based networks give you their system, their licensing umbrella and support, in return for a commission split or fee. See our guide to UK host agencies.
3. Own agency using a consolidator for ticketing. You build the booking and pass it to the consolidator to issue tickets.
4. Own agency with your own accreditation and vendor contract. This is the heaviest option and suits businesses with real air volume.

Licensing is a separate question from GDS access. Our guide to ABTA and ATOL explains what UK agents need to know about consumer protection, and our UK career guide covers the practical route in. This is general information, not legal advice, so confirm obligations with ABTA, the Civil Aviation Authority and your own adviser.

A Practical Decision Framework

1. Who is your host or employer? Their system is yours.
2. Where do your clients fly? UK and Europe-heavy retail is well served by both. Long-haul business travel needs a live test on each system.
3. Who tickets for you? If you are not accredited, your consolidator decides how smoothly ticketing queues work on each system.
4. Who will you hire? Ask local training providers and recruiters which system candidates tend to know.
5. What does leaving cost? Minimum terms and exit procedures matter more than headline fees.

Three Illustrative Scenarios

These are hypothetical, to show how the choice plays out.

Emma: leaving a high-street branch to work from home

Emma has eight years on one GDS in a retail chain. She should look for a home-based network that either uses the same system or provides a desktop that translates commands, so she is productive in her first week and not her third month.

Oliver: starting a small business travel agency

Oliver has three staff and several local companies who want a single point of contact for flights. He should test both systems with real itineraries, agree a consolidator for ticketing and price the total package including training. He should also ask each vendor what it would take to connect to his booking tools.

Chloe: a new agent with a leisure focus

Chloe sells holidays, with the occasional flight. She does not need a GDS at all. Her host's supplier portals and ticketing desk are enough, and her effort is better spent on the licence and supplier relationships.

If You Do Have to Switch: A Realistic Plan

Moving systems is a project, not a weekend task. The sequence below suits a small agency or a home-based agent whose host changes platform.

1. Before the cutover. Ask the vendor or host for a training schedule and a sandbox or training environment. Write down the ten commands you use every day on the old system and find their equivalents on the new one.
2. Week one. Book simple itineraries only. Keep the old reference sheet beside you and double-check ticketing time limits, because the display for these differs by system.
3. Weeks two to four. Move on to changes, splits and reissues, which is where unfamiliar commands cause expensive mistakes. Ask a colleague to review your first few exchanges.
4. Afterwards. Rebuild any queues, templates and notes you relied on, and keep access to the old system until your open bookings have been flown.

Ticketing in Practice for Non-Accredited Agents

Many UK agents who are not IATA accredited still sell flights, and the process is worth understanding because it affects which GDS suits you. A typical flow looks like this. You build and price the booking. You then send it to your ticketing partner, either through an automated queue or by phone or email. The partner issues the ticket on its own authority and fares. If the client later needs a change or refund, you go back to the partner, who deals with the airline. Two things can catch people out: consolidators usually pass refunds on only once the airline has paid them, and consolidator fares can carry stricter conditions than the public fare you quoted. Agree with your partner in advance how quickly it handles changes, and whether it queues PNRs automatically on the system you use.

Common Mistakes

• Choosing by reputation alone. Public deals show UK agencies moving both ways over the years, so no system is permanently ahead.
• Forgetting the ticketing partner. Your consolidator can limit your options as much as the vendor.
• Learning from the wrong system's examples. Training videos and forum posts often use the other GDS, so check before you copy a command.
• Treating licensing as a GDS issue. ATOL and ABTA are separate from GDS access, and your host may handle them differently.

Further Reading and Tools

For capabilities in depth, see our three-way GDS comparison and the GDS selection framework. If you need to turn raw Galileo or Amadeus PNR text into a client-ready document, the free PNRGenius converter reads both. Everything here reflects publicly reported deals and vendor statements, so confirm current terms directly with your host, vendor or consolidator.