The com.sabre.redapp.example.longrunning sample is based on the Eclipse Jobs API, as described in Example  2 in the following article:

        http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Concurrency/jobs-api.html

This sample plug-in is a long-running operation outside the UI thread. The Eclipse Jobs API supports the execution of the background processes and provides the user with feedback, such as a progress dialog.

In this sample, Activator.java simulates the long-running operation.