Transforming Travel Agent Experiences with Sabre Red
Leading Sabre’s UX for Travel Agent Solutions.
As the UX Manager at Sabre Travel Network, my team kick-started the transformation of our travel agent software, Sabre Red. This comprehensive initiative involved extensive collaboration with engineering, design system development, prototype testing with travel agents, and the launch of an intuitive UX/UI, significantly elevating travel agents' productivity and satisfaction.
User Experience Manager
Team of 8
Reported to Business & Engineering teams
4 years
Reason for leaving: Growth opportunity at GameStop
Quick Impact During my Time @ Sabre
120,000+
120,000+ agents in 110+ countries upgraded to Sabre Red (by May 2011). Modernized point-of-sale at a global scale.
145,000
145,000 agents upgraded to Red by August 2011 (up from 120k in May), demonstrating rapid adoption momentum in just a few months.
20%
Up to 20% faster bookings + 30% fewer keystrokes with Sabre Red’s graphical view, leading to quicker service and higher agent throughput.
60
Ancillary details from ~60 airlines available via Air Total Pricing’s global rollout, offering richer comparison shopping and fewer surprises for travelers.
67%
Training time is cut from ~6 weeks to ~2 weeks on the new graphical view, resulting in ~67% faster onboarding for new agents.
55,000+
55,000+ travel agency locations connected to Sabre Travel Network (distribution reach), strong channel coverage.
Design System & Prototyping
Integration and Feasibility: Worked closely with engineering teams to align design ambitions with technical possibilities, ensuring smooth and effective implementation of innovative features.
Cohesive User Experience: Initiated a comprehensive design system, providing consistent, intuitive interactions across the entire suite of tools, simplifying usage and enhancing agent efficiency.
Validated Usability: Conducted prototype testing directly with travel agents, gathering real-world feedback that informed critical improvements, making the platform easier and faster to adopt.
Destinations Reached
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Co-founded and grew Sabre’s first UX team for the travel agent business, significantly elevating enterprise product design for tools used by thousands of agents worldwide
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Designed Travelocity’s first mobile web app, which was showcased in an Apple keynote and instrumental in driving Travelocity’s early mobile growth.
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Supported internal innovation through company-wide hackathons and devhouses, helping accelerate the delivery of new features across product lines.
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Led start of the flagship Sabre Red product design, built the design system, partnered closely with engineering, and prototype-tested with agents—launching a new UI that lifted agent productivity and satisfaction.
Launching Sabre Red 360
Impactful Results: The launch of Sabre Red 360 was praised by travel agents for its significant improvements:
Enhanced Productivity: Enabled travel agents to work up to 25% faster and reduced their training time by 50% through an intuitive interface and smarter workflows.
Remote Efficiency: Introduced Sabre Red Web, a browser-based solution allowing travel consultants to manage reservations seamlessly from any location without heavy hardware requirements.
Tailored Experience: Offered extensive workspace customization, aligning closely with each agency's unique business strategies and brand promises, significantly enriching customer experiences.
Development center in Kraków
While serving global travel agent customers, I partnered closely with our large development center in Kraków, Poland. I managed direct reports in Kraków and traveled there to align teams and set UX strategy for upcoming products.
