Amadeus

Amadeus controls over 40% of the global distribution system market, processing flight, hotel, and car rental bookings for 90% of the world's airlines—a network position so entrenched that displacing it would require rebuilding the entire travel industry's neural system. The Spanish technology company generated €6.14 billion in revenue during 2024 (up 13%), but these figures obscure the true competitive mechanism: every airline connection added to Amadeus makes the platform more valuable to travel agents, which attracts more airlines, which attracts more agents. This positive feedback loop creates network effects that compound over decades.

The company operates critical infrastructure—Global Distribution Systems (GDS) that connect airlines' inventory systems to travel agencies' booking platforms. Like mycorrhizal networks that facilitate nutrient exchange between tree species, Amadeus enables communication between incompatible reservation systems. Once an airline integrates its inventory feeds and an agency builds workflows around Amadeus APIs, switching costs become prohibitive. The platform processed bookings from 8.1 billion online visits in 2024, each interaction training recommendation algorithms that improve conversion rates.

Strategic expansion into cloud-based solutions for airlines, hotels, and airports demonstrates niche construction. By 2026, Amadeus targets full cloud migration (60% complete by March 2025), reducing infrastructure costs while enabling AI-powered features competitors cannot match. Acquisitions of Vision Box (biometrics) and Voxel (payments) extend the platform vertically, capturing revenue at check-in and transaction settlement—not just booking.

Yet the dominance attracts regulatory scrutiny. EU competition authorities investigate whether GDS market concentration stifles innovation. Airlines resist fees that extract 2-3% of ticket value for distribution. Direct booking channels and API-based alternatives threaten to bypass Amadeus entirely. The organism that built moats through network effects now faces coordinated defection: if enough large airlines shift to direct distribution simultaneously, the platform's advantage collapses. Ecology teaches that even keystone species go extinct when the environment shifts faster than adaptation cycles allow.