ABSTRACT
Aviation provides the earliest example of digital platforms in transportation: the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) connecting airlines and travel agents for booking services. Amadeus and Sabre started to intermediate aviation services in the 1980s making use of cutting-edge computing technology. Conflicts abounded firstly as they were accused of self-preferencing (both were owned by airlines). Neutrality in the display of search results to travel agents was always an issue. Access to data, exclusivity, content liability (flights operated by non-airworthiness airlines) they were all contentious issues, just as with digital platforms today. Actually, all these issues were regulated both in the US and the EU in which are the first and most elaborated precedents of digital platform regulation, in particular the EU Code of Conduct for computerized reservation systems, adopted in 1989, reviewed in 2009, and still on force.
