It’s not the novelty for Pakistan International Airline (PIA) being the part of scandals due to their poor management of passengers. However, apart from different scandals now PIA’s reservation service software for domestic and international flights has to turn out to be a heavy burden for the airline reputation.
Now, it is considered an unwanted accessory as it becomes the source of loss of billions
It is important to mention here that PIA is using this software for the reservation of tickets and boarding services for the last 17 years. Now, for the maintenance of the flight management software named ‘Saber’, a US company offers its services.
Former chairman of PIA, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was the one who first signed the contract with ‘Saber’. After that, the agreement was renewed for another 10 years during the era of MD Captain Ejaz Haroon, prioritizing the contract till 2030 through a special clause.
Furthermore, PIA fleets have now been reduced to just 32 aircraft, down from 42 and the software had become a needless utility for the airline.
Furthermore, on an annual basis, PIA is paying the American company for the services which it never provides.
Must Read: Teenager hacks into Apple server; downloads troves of data….
According to sources, the reason behind the failure of Saber’s software system is small bugs which result in losses worth billions of rupees every few weeks. As another flight schedule was affected because of the faults in the software just six days ago.
Legal Bindings
Despite the fact that PIA wants to end the agreement there is no clause in the agreement about its termination. Moreover, the original agreement declares handling of approximately 60,000 passengers and 42 aircraft but then again the fleets have now been reduced to 32 and the passengers have been decreasing badly on daily basis.
Now the national airline wants to enter into a contract with a Turkish company. In this regard, the company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2017 with the Turkish service providers and settled the agreement in the current year.
However, the irony is now PIA is unable to of Saber due to the legal binding of the agreement. Higher courts are handling the issue. Many officials declare if PIA is free from Saber it will save billions of rupees every year.
