Worldspan Sold To Private Venture FirmWorldspan Sold To Private Venture Firm

A newly formed travel technology company backed by private equity funding from Citigroup and Teacher's Merchant Bank has acquired Worldspan, an online travel-services firm, from the consortium of airlines. Terms of the deal were not revealed.

Travel Transaction Processing Corp. is taking control of Worldspan and its E-travel services, which are aimed at airlines, travel agents, and ticket distributors. Among those services are Trip Manager, designed to simplify the booking process for corporate travel managers, and Rapid Reprice, which airlines can use to quickly recalculate fares when passenger itineraries change. Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, and American Airlines previously operated Worldspan, which was founded in 1990.

Travel Transaction has named travel-industry veteran Rakesh Gangwal chairman and CEO of Worldspan. He is a former CEO of US Airways Group and was an executive VP at Air France. The company says it will expand Worldspan's global operations by pushing sales to overseas carriers. It also won't cut services to travel agencies, despite the fact that E-booking has led to more direct sales in the travel industry.