The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) website has switched to a “new modern system” after 17 years. Although the management expected a smooth transition to the new reservation system, the passengers, travel agents and even the PIA staffers seem to be in a fix following the upgrade.
According to a local media report, there are spelling mistakes in the welcome message itself (traveler, effecting & regreted). The message also missed the word ‘to’ after ‘provide’ or ‘with’ before a better service.
Furthermore, a travel agent quoted in the report said that “the website is not displaying booking information, information about schedule of flights is not available on old system and the new system is displaying false availability, i.e. if the staff tries to confirm an available seat, the system gives it a waitlist and not confirmed seats. Moreover, the website is crashing at regular intervals”.
The HITIT function is also very slow due to which long queues can be seen at passenger counters.
“The agents cannot book on the new system; PNRs are being developed on Travelport/Gellaleo (another reservation system); CRC is unable to overbook flights; PHS is issuing manual boarding cards due to unavailability of the new system; stations abroad are having problems even in affixing signatures in the new system.”
Previously, Sabre reservation system (licensed and managed by a US-based company) was working as a backbone for PIA Marketing & Operations departments. Moreover, the staff is not properly trained to use the new system and where the staff was trained, the system was not supported to carry out the operations resulting in manual boarding which created a mess at early hours of this morning on various PIA flights.