JEDDAH, 14 March — Pakistan International Airlines that operates weekly 23 flights to and from Saudi Arabia, inaugurated its “Sabre multihost reservation and auto ticketing system” at its agents Kanoo Travel’s office yesterday.
Demonstrating the new link between Kanoo and Sabre, PIA General Manager Saleem Nisar said: “Sabre, one of the largest aviation software programs, is based on Tulsa in the US, and will be extended to 25 travel agents Kingdomwide in due course.”
Linking of Kanoo with PIA’s Sabre means that passengers will no longer have to wait for confirmation of their reservations or issuance of tickets from the PIA office. All these plus selection of seats even in the economy class can be done by the travel agent itself.
Nisar, who hinted at PIA’s plan to introduce the reservation system through the Internet also, said: “Twenty to 25 percent of our revenue is from the Kingdom through our weekly 11 flights to Jeddah, five to Riyadh and seven to Dammam. We’ve three online stations — Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah. Our offline offices are in Makkah, Madinah and Yanbu. Saudi Arabian Airlines operates the same number of flights to Pakistan as PIA.”
He added: “After setbacks since Sept. 11 including our inability to fly over India, PIA’s performance has been a lot better both in terms of operations and revenue.”
