What SITA means
SITA began as a shared communications network. In February 1949, eleven airlines (ten European carriers and TWA) pooled their telecommunications so that messages between airports and airline offices could travel over common lines while each airline kept control of its own equipment. The original French name, Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques, is now rarely spelled out.
The organisation is still owned by its members, roughly 400 air transport and related organisations according to its 2024 press kit, which gives its registered office as Brussels. It is not a regulator or a standards body like IATA; it is a supplier that the industry owns.
Over time the network work grew into a much wider IT business. SITA's own history lists a packet-switching data network in 1966, common-use check-in terminals (CUTE) for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, an e-visa system for the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the Smart Path biometric boarding product in 2017. Today its portfolio covers airport passenger processing, baggage, border management and aircraft communications.
For travel sellers, SITA matters mostly in the background. Type B messages, a teletype-era format standardised by IATA, still carry much of the booking traffic between GDSs and airline reservation systems. IATA's 2025 white paper names SITA and ARINC as the two main global Type B networks. SITA also used to sell a fare management system, Airfare Insight, which ATPCO took over in 2021.
How SITA works
A booking made in a GDS reaches the airline as a structured message, and SITA's network is one of the main routes that message can take.
- Agent sells a segmentAn agent or booking engine sells a flight in a GDS. The GDS builds a booking message for the operating airline's reservation system.
- Message is addressedThe message is sent in Type B format to the airline's network address. Type B messages use capital letters, digits and a few symbols, with strict line limits inherited from teletype.
- Network stores and forwardsA store-and-forward network such as SITA's or ARINC's accepts the message, queues it and delivers it to the recipient, with monitoring to confirm delivery.
- Airline repliesThe airline's system processes the request and sends a reply, such as a confirmation and its own record locator, back along the same kind of route.
- Airport systems take overOn the day of travel, SITA or other providers' common-use and baggage systems may handle check-in, boarding and bag tracking for the same passenger.
SITA in practice
Scale of messaging (verified). SITA's product page for its Type B distribution service quotes more than 13,000 unique connections and 35 million messages delivered daily. IATA's Type B white paper (version 2.5, May 2025) estimates that passenger handling accounts for about 90% of all Type B traffic.
Airport example (verified). SITA's CUTE system, introduced for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, let one airport check-in desk serve many airlines instead of each carrier needing its own terminals. Common-use desks of this kind are now standard at busy international airports.
Illustrative. An agency in Dubai books a passenger on a partner airline through its GDS. The agent never sees a SITA screen, but the booking request and the airline's confirmation may travel as Type B messages over SITA's network.
Who uses it
Advantages and limitations
Advantages
- One network connection lets an airline or system reach a very large part of the air transport community.
- Industry ownership means the main customers also have a say in governance and direction.
- Store-and-forward delivery with monitoring gives assured delivery of operational and booking messages.
- Common-use airport systems reduce the equipment each airline must install at every station.
Limitations
- Type B is an old, restrictive format, and IATA's white paper reports that airlines spend more than USD 1 billion a year on Type B messaging.
- Travel sellers rarely deal with SITA directly, so problems in message delivery are hard for an agency to see or influence.
- Newer API-based distribution such as NDC uses different technology, so Type B and modern APIs run side by side for years.
- Its broad product range makes it hard to know which SITA service is involved in a given process without asking the airline or airport.
Frequently asked questions about SITA
What does SITA stand for in aviation?
It began as Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques, French for International Society of Aeronautical Telecommunications. The company now trades simply as SITA. It was created in 1949 by eleven airlines that wanted a shared communications network between their offices and airports.
Who owns SITA?
SITA is owned by the air transport industry itself. Its 2024 press kit describes a membership of around 400 organisations from air transport and related sectors. Members guide strategy through governance bodies such as the SITA Board and Council, which makes it different from a privately owned technology vendor.
What is a Type B message?
A Type B message is a standardised airline message format developed by IATA in the 1960s from teletype practice. It uses capital letters, numbers and a few symbols, with up to 60 lines of 63 characters. It carries booking, baggage, operations and passenger data between airlines, GDSs, airports and governments.
Is SITA the same as IATA?
No. IATA is the trade association of airlines and sets many industry standards, including the Type B format. SITA is an industry-owned IT and communications company that sells services such as messaging networks, airport systems and border technology. Both are rooted in the airline industry but play different roles.
Run your agency on one booking platform
ReservationHub's Subscription Cloud Edition gives agencies GDS, NDC and low-cost content, B2B and B2C sales, and back office in one hosted platform.
See the SaaS platform