How to Read a Galileo / Travelport Entry
5 min read · Published · Updated
Galileo, now Travelport+ and part of Travelport, is one of the world's major global distribution systems. If you switch from an Amadeus workstation to a Galileo terminal, the segment lines look familiar: one line per flight with carrier, flight number, class, date, city pair, status and 24-hour times. The differences are elsewhere. Passengers are numbered by name item (1.1, 1.2), segments have their own numbering, and the airline's own booking reference is shown as a vendor locator. Some Travelport displays, notably the Apollo-style displays historically used in North America, also show times in 12-hour format with an A or P suffix, which is easy to misread. This guide covers all of these.
A complete Galileo segment display
Here is a representative two-segment Galileo display for one passenger travelling from London Heathrow to New York JFK and returning a week later.
1.1SMITH/JOHN MR
1. BA 112 Y 20AUG LHRJFK HK1 0825 1130 O E
2. BA 113 Y 27AUG JFKLHR HK1 2100 0830 +1 E
** VENDOR LOCATOR - BA/ABC123 **Decoding the segment line field by field
The first segment, BA 112 on 20 August in booking class Y from LHR to JFK, breaks down as follows:
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Segment no. | 1. | Position of this segment in the itinerary |
| Carrier | BA | Marketing airline IATA code — British Airways |
| Flight no. | 112 | Flight number; quoted as BA112 |
| Booking class | Y | Reservation booking designator — full economy |
| Date | 20AUG | Departure date — 20 August |
| City pair | LHRJFK | Board point LHR (London Heathrow) → off point JFK (New York) |
| Status | HK1 | HK = confirmed; 1 = one seat held |
| Departs | 0825 | 08:25 local time at origin (24-hour) |
| Arrives | 1130 | 11:30 local time at destination |
| Trailing flags | O E | Extra indicators after the times. E marks an e-ticket-eligible segment; the other flags depend on the display and carrier |
12-hour times with A or P
Galileo segment displays normally show 24-hour local times, like Amadeus: 0825 is 08:25 and 2100 is 21:00. Some Travelport displays, particularly Apollo-style ones, show 12-hour times with a suffix instead: 0825A, 0900P. A means AM, from midnight to 11:59 in the morning. P means PM, from noon to 11:59 at night. To convert, strip the suffix. For P times add twelve hours unless the hour is 12. For A times with hour 12, use 00. So 0825A is 08:25, 1130A is 11:30, and 0900P is 21:00. Midnight is 1200A (00:00) and noon is 1200P (12:00), the two times most often misread.
If you cross-check bookings between systems, or a traveller forwards a 12-hour display, convert before comparing. A discrepancy that looks like a booking error is often just 0900P in one display and 2100 in another.
The +1 day-offset marker
Look at segment 2: BA 113 departs JFK at 2100 on 27 August and arrives LHR at 0830 with +1 after the arrival time. The +1 means the aircraft lands on the day after departure, 28 August, as you would expect for an overnight transatlantic flight. Exactly how a later-day arrival is marked can vary between displays, so check for it on every overnight segment rather than assuming the arrival date matches the departure date.
Offsets other than +1 are rare but real. A +2 can appear on long multi-stop journeys. Flights westbound across the International Date Line, such as from East Asia to North America, can arrive on the previous calendar date, shown as a negative offset. No offset marker, as on segment 1, means arrival is on the same calendar date as departure, in local time at the destination.
Name numbering
The name line at the top reads 1.1SMITH/JOHN MR. The number before the full stop is the name item, and the number after it is the passenger within that item. Passengers entered together in one name entry share a surname and are numbered within the same item: 1.1PATEL/RAVI MR 1.2PATEL/ANITA MRS. Passengers entered separately get new item numbers, 2.1, 3.1, even if they share a surname, so the numbering tells you how the names were entered, not who is travelling together. These references are how you point at one passenger in later entries, such as seats or frequent-flyer numbers. The number of seats in each segment status (HK2 for two passengers) must match the number of passengers.
Vendor locators
The line ** VENDOR LOCATOR - BA/ABC123 ** appears below the segments. A vendor locator is the airline's own booking reference for this itinerary — the code that the airline's own system (in this case British Airways) assigned when Galileo transmitted the booking. It is distinct from the Galileo record locator, which is the GDS-side reference. When you call British Airways directly, or when you check in at an airport kiosk, the airline will look up the reservation using its own reference, so it is the vendor locator you give to the passenger for self-service check-in. In this simplified example it is shown on a VENDOR LOCATOR line; the exact layout depends on the display you are using.
A PNR can carry vendor locators from multiple airlines if the itinerary contains segments operated by different carriers. Each airline's locator is shown with its two-letter airline code, so check you give the passenger the one for the airline they are dealing with.
Common reading mistakes
- On 12-hour displays, misreading 1200A as noon. 1200A is midnight (00:00); noon is 1200P.
- Missing the +1. On overnight flights, quote the arrival date as the day after departure.
- Giving the passenger the wrong reference. For the airline's website, kiosk or call centre, the passenger usually needs the airline's vendor locator, not the Galileo record locator.
- Comparing a 12-hour display with a 24-hour one without converting. The same flight reads 0900P in one and 2100 in the other.
- Miscounting seats. HK2 on a segment means two seats; check it matches the number of names in the booking.
FlyTix reads both 24-hour times and 12-hour A/P times, shows everything in 24-hour format and labels arrival-day offsets clearly, so you can share a clean itinerary without translating the display by hand.
Examples on this page use made-up data. Spotted an error or something that differs in your GDS? Send us a correction.