Orbitz Brands

Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine. The website is owned by Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Expedia Group. It is headquartered in the Citigroup Center, Chicago, Illinois.

Background

Originally established through a partnership of major airlines, and subsequently owned by various entities, Orbitz.com – the flagship brand of Orbitz Worldwide – has been in operation since 2001. Other Orbitz Worldwide online travel companies include CheapTickets in the Americas; ebookers in Europe; and HotelClub and RatestoGo, based in Sydney. Orbitz Worldwide also owns and operates Orbitz for Business, a corporate travel company.

Orbitz was the airline industry's response to the rise of online travel agencies such as Expedia and Travelocity, as well as a solution to lower airline distribution costs. Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, and United Airlines, subsequently joined by American Airlines, invested a combined $145 million to start the project in November 1999. It was code-named T2, some claimed meaning "Travelocity Terminator", but adopted the brand name Orbitz when it commenced corporate operations as DUNC, LLC (the initials of its first four founding airlines) in February 2000. The company began beta testing early the next year, and Orbitz.com officially launched in June 2001.

Antitrust concerns

Before, during, and two years after launching the site, the company faced antitrust criticism since its creators controlled 75% of U.S. air travel. The United States Department of Transportation saw no antitrust issues with the launch of the Orbitz website. The United States Department of Justice ruled in 2003 that Orbitz was not a cartel and that there was no evidence of price fixing.

Nielsen's Net rating division that the launch of the Orbitz website in June 2001 was the biggest e-commerce launch ever to that date.

Ownership history

In November 2003, Orbitz filed paperwork to sell shares at between $22 and $24 each in an initial public offering. The company went public on December 18, 2003 at a price per share of $26. After the IPO, the airlines held 70% of the outstanding stock and over 90% of the voting power.

On September 29, 2004, Orbitz was acquired for $1.25 billion by New York City-based Cendant Corporation. Cendant paid $27.50 per share.

In 2006, The Blackstone Group acquired Travelport, the travel distribution services business of Cendant, for $4.3 billion in cash. At the time, Travelport included the Orbitz travel reservation website used by consumers, the Galileo computer reservations system used by airlines and thousands of travel agents, Gulliver's Travels and Associates wholesale travel business, and other travel related software brands and solutions.

Travelport announced in May 2007 that it had filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell a portion of Orbitz Worldwide in an initial public offering (IPO). Travelport said it planned to use a portion of the proceeds to pay down its debt. Trading began on July 20, 2007, and the IPO transaction closed on July 25, 2007. Travelport owned approximately 48 percent of Orbitz Worldwide following the IPO.

In February 2015, Expedia announced that it would acquire Orbitz for $1.2 billion in cash, to better compete with Priceline.com. The deal was announced a few days after Expedia agreed to purchase Travelocity.

Technologies

Orbitz runs on a mixed Red Hat Linux and Solaris based platform and was an early adopter of Sun Microsystems' Jini platform in a clustered Java environment. JBoss is used as application servers within their environment, along with various other proprietary