Issues in PIA’s New Reservation System Cause Steep Drop in Sales

Pakistan International Airlines’ (PIA) new reservation system, the HITIT has caused a drop in sales, local media reports say.

The Senate’s Aviation Committee grilled the Chairman of the National flag-carrier Muhammad Saqib Aziz regarding the operations of the new system. He reportedly failed to satisfy the committee with his reponses.

After the meeting, Mr Saqib Aziz conveyed all the details from the Senate session to HITIT Computer Services Chairman Noor Gukman and urged him to resolve the matter on a priority basis.

Chairman PIA Saga

Saqib Aziz, an ex-bureaucrat and a former Aviation Secretary, was elevated to this position in September this year. He was also given an additional charge as the company’s CEO.

However, a change of mind caused the government to name Air Marshal Arshad Malik as the airlines’ new chairman in a Cabinet Division meeting, but a formal notification of his appointment is yet to be issued. In this case, Mr Saqib technically still holds the office.

Issues with the HITIT System

PIA recently acquired the services of HITIT Computer Services – a private Turkish company – that sells commercial IT systems for the travel industry.

With the acquisition of the new airline management system, PIA ended its 20-year partnership with Sabre Global Distribution System (Sabre) – a USA-based company.

PIA chairman had said that the HITIT would provide services for reservation, flight operations, accounting, crew management, flight check-in and flights scheduling and other services.

He claimed that this new system is not only cost-effective but also very efficient compared to the previous one.

But days after the new system was launched, numerous complaints were filed, suggesting that the new website had many bugs. Some people mentioned that there’s no way to check booking information, and sometimes the reservation system fails in checking seat availability. Other than that, consistent system crashes were also observed.

PIA officials had stated that the new system might need some time to stabilize. However, a month later, the problem persists.


  • The system worked fine for me, I book my ticket from UK to Islamabad for February 2019 for £421. The only thing that did not work was the ability to select your own seat


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