Online charter booking portals Avinode and CharterX have agreed to merge, with Avinode buying out the CharterX shares for an undisclosed sum. The deal–announced on Friday–should be closed within three weeks, at which point the two companies’ technical teams will start integrating the rival systems. Avinode chief executive Niklas Berg said the merger will mean that aircraft charter operators and brokers will have to use only one site to trade in a global marketplace, saving time by not having to update data to two separate sites. “We have been on parallel tracks for many years, trying to establish a global market,” he told AIN. “Avinode has had more success in Europe and CharterX has had success in the U.S. This is also about creating the next-generation marketplace, and we have decided that it will be better if we do it together.” Trenton, N.J.-based CharterX is to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Avinode, which is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, and has a U.S. subsidiary in Miami, Fla. CharterX subsidiary Wyvern, which provides safety audits for aircraft operators, will continue to trade as an independent entity. The Avinode site currently includes data from rival auditing group Argus.