Oktay Zan

Senior Expert, Software Developer, Team Lead with extensive experience in Airline Passenger Service Systems (PSS), specializing in Reservation and Ticketing. Proven expertise across all stages of analysis, planning, development, and testing for Ticketing (issue, exchange, refund), Fares, Sales Reports, Electronic Ticketing, EMD, PNR, NDC, GDS, and Interline projects. Proficient in developing high-performance, reliable solutions with IBM z/OS Assembler, ALCS/TPF, TPFDF, SPM, and Python.

Turkish Airlines
1997 – 2023

Senior Analyst Programmer

1997 – 2018

• Extensive experience in the Airline PSS Reservation/Ticketing domain, with proficiency in IATA standards.
• Led integration of Electronic Ticketing and EMD into PSS, supporting industry-standard ticketing processes.
• Integrated Travelport 360 Fares/GFI and ITA Software by Google pricing into the PSS.
• Developed solutions for connecting PSS with Global Distribution Systems (GDS) like Amadeus, Travelport, Sabre, Axess, Worldspan, and Apollo, ensuring EDIFACT compliance.
• Implemented the New Distribution Capability (NDC) framework to enhance distribution strategies.
• Developed IBM MQSeries and TCP/IP-based solutions to enable mainframe-to-open-system communication.
• Analyzed and resolved problem tickets, ensuring continuity and compliance with industry standards.

Team Lead / Project Manager

2019 – 2023

• Led the Ticketing team to adapt to new industry standards.
• Trained and mentored team members, promoting growth and technical expertise.
• Set development goals and managed escalations to ensure project success.

Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)

2023 – Present

• Responsible for the continuity and reliability of mainframe systems and critical applications, ensuring high availability and operational stability.
• Monitored and proactively managed mainframe performance, addressing issues to maintain uptime for business-critical airline applications.
• Implemented alert systems and dashboards through Grafana, providing real-time visibility into operational metrics and potential risks.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to enhance incident response, improve system resilience, and drive reliability improvements.
• Developed tools and processes to automate maintenance tasks, reduce downtime, and optimize system performance.

Notable Projects:

• DAISY Project: Developed a message-based layer using IBM MQSeries for seamless bidirectional messaging between mainframe and open systems. Enabled real-time ticketing and pricing functionality for online systems.
• Multi-TCB Project: Implemented synchronization for multiple CPU/processors in mainframe, ensuring accurate coordination in shared environments.
• GDS Integration: Led integrations with Amadeus, Travelport, Sabre, and other systems, ensuring EDIFACT standard compliance to guarantee smooth interoperability with different systems.
• INCO Project: Implemented automatic stock number management for ETKT and EMD, facilitating automated stock allocation and minimizing manual processes