Sabre Holdings has named Hugh Jones president of Sabre Airline Solutions and has hired online travel veteran Carl Sparks to replace Jones as CEO of Travelocity.
The moves take effect on April 25.
Sparks most recently served as president of Gilt Groupe, a company providing invitation-only access to high-end products such as apparel, merchandise and travel packages.
Jones will head a unit that has experienced "significant growth" in the past few years, entering agreements to power the reservations systems of Virgin America, LAN Chile, Aeroflot, JetBlue, WestJet and Philippine Airlines.
"Jones will now leverage his diverse experience at Sabre to accelerate the company’s plans to be the world’s leading software-as-a-service business," Sabre Holdings said in a statement.
The appointment marks a return to the air-solutions unit for Jones. Before replacing Michelle Peluso as Travelocity CEO in February 2009, he served as COO for Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions.
Jones is not replacing anybody at Sabre Airline Solutions. Tom Klein has been overseeing the unit as part of his role as Sabre Holdings president.
Sabre called Sparks "an experienced leader in the online retail industry." Prior to Gilt, he was general manager of Hotels.com after serving as chief marketing officer at Expedia.