OAG, said by many to be the engine room that drives the airline industry, has been purchased for £2.5m ($4.9m) by United Business Media, a UK Company which owns CMP, US-based Commonwealth Business Media and PR Newswire.
Amongst the many United Business Media publications is industry weekly TTG (Travel Trade Gazette, published by CMP Information), and its offspring. Another is BACK Aviation, a major US-based airline and transportation consultancy, who has been a client of OAG for many years.
OAG, originally called Official Airline Guides, was purchased some years ago by Reed Elsevier (owner of Flight International and Travel Weekly in the UK), who merged it into ABC - the airline and railway guide dating back to 1859. It was then sold to an investment bank.
The OAG system, which provides passenger and cargo flight information to the global aviation industry, is to be integrated into United Business Media's BACK Aviation database. OAG's database holds historical, current, and future flight details for 1,000 airlines and over 3,500 airports - tracking 28m departures every year. The company, who last week signed a deal with Avis to distribute its flight information via the Avis online booking tool, has over 50,000 customers. These include airlines, airports, global distribution systems, corporate travel planners, government bodies, aircraft manufacturers, freight forwarders and the travelling public.
OAG promotes the Airline of the Year awards and is the owner of Executive Travel. Chairman Eddie Bell and chief executive Les Higgins have left the company.
Commonwealth Business Media CEO Alan Glass said: "The Acquisition of OAG gives Commonwealth a great opportunity to extend and enhance our aviation industry product portfolio. Combining our existing Back Aviation database products with those of OAG will enable us to build a set of market-leading, data-based workflow products that are integral to the everyday operations of the aviation industry worldwide."
At the OAG headquarters in Dunstable, near Luton, it is very much "business as usual."