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IATA reports another ticketing scam causing PIA loss of millions

ISLAMABAD: March 20, 2023: Another ticketing scam has hit Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), costing it millions of rupee This time the scam is bit different to the last one as the fraud involving an Islamabad-based travel agent has been reported by International Air Transport Association (IATA) to the authorities for action.

Sources confided to NEWSMAN that IATA has reported to PIA administration in Islamabad that its agent M/s Al Taqi Travel, is issuing suspicious tickets to its clients through manual system and reporting nominal price against issued tickets. IATA further noted the travel agent in question seems involved in misreporting of the price of the tickets and hence causing loss of millions of rupee to PIA. IATA apprehends that Al Taqi Travel might have developed some loopholes in PIA system for cheating through the manual ticketing procedure to make ill-gotton money.

An identical scam had unearthed in PIA some three months ago which also involved a PIA agent who issued tickets to the clients of millions of rupee over and above his security deposited with airlines. The airlines administration carried out a fake exercise against the agent and subsequently protected him on the behest of its top officials. Now after a few months, another travel agent has allegedly managed to cheat PIA system to issue tickets manually to defraud PIA. The matter is of such a serious nature that it has caught attention of IATA which reported it to PIA authorities for action.

NEWSMAN sent a questionnaire to Mr Abdullah Hafeez, spokesman for PIA to get the national airlines version on the issue . In response to the questionnaire, Mr Abdullah Hafeez claimed that ticketing scam involving M/s Al-Taqi Travel had surfaced sometimes back and a prompt action was also taken in the case. Here is the reply sent by Mr Abdullah Hafeez to NEWSMAN in response to its questionnaire. The reply said “ 200 tickets were identified and recovery already made. Al-Taqi Travel is a good agent since last 20 years and its one employee was involved in the wrongdoing. Agency has also been delinked from IATA as PIA system works and it identified the scam immediately”.

NEWSMAN sources ,however, contradicted Mr Abduallh Hafeez’s claims and disclosed that PIA had no clue of the scam rather there seems inclusion of PIA top authorities in the scam . These sources further disclosed that it was IATA which reported the scam and asked the airlines to investigate the matter to immediate stop Al-Taqi from carrying on the fraud.

Payment procedure

All GDS agents who sold airlines ticket through IATA and pay by BSP report.

PIA has almost more than 1000 GDS agents who sold PIA tickets through different ticketing system like as SABRE, GALILEO, AMADEUS, HITIT etc against their bank gurantee and payment made through IATA BSP billing portal each fortnight
Here AL TAQI TRAVEL of Islamabad Territory identified by IATA head office Singapore that he is issuing suspicious tickets with manual fare pricing example PNR 8J7YF0 having 02 PAX issued with PKR 1000 each while actual ticket price was almost 148000 per ticket and This agent issued with 1000 only per ticket.

Almost more than 5000 tickets were issued during this & last year
This all responsibility land on the revenue accounting section of PIA who just enjoying heavy salaries and failed to report single ticket from last 20 year.

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