Travelocity to move 300 jobs to India

Fort Worth[less] Startlegram ^ | 2/12/04 | Jim Fuquay

[harpu]

Travelocity.com, the online travel service, said Wednesday it expects to save $10 million a year by moving about 300 U.S. call-center jobs to India.

The company said it intends to close its 250-employee Clintwood, Va., call center by year's end. An additional 50 job cuts are expected at its call center in San Antonio, where more than 750 people work, said spokesman Joel Frey.

An Indian company, WNS North America, is expected to start taking some of the calls at its facilities in India by April or May, and the transition to WNS is expected to be complete by year's end, Frey said. WNS is partly owned by British Airways, and about half of WNS' work is related to travel, he said.

The company said annual savings should rise with anticipated increases in call volume.

Travelocity reported an operating loss of $100 million in 2003 and has said it expects to be profitable this year. It said the WNS contract "is part of Travelocity's ongoing efforts to maintain its competitiveness and to position itself for profitability in 2004 and beyond."

The affected jobs deal with "front-line customer-service calls" and e-mails, as well as back-office operations that include ticketing, the company said. Frey said affected workers in Clintwood will be offered transfers to sales-oriented jobs at call centers in San Antonio and Pennsylvania.

Clintwood Mayor Donald Baker said news of the call center's closing was a complete surprise. He said Travelocity is the largest private employer in the rural southwest Virginia town, which has a population of about 2,000.

"It's going to have a pretty significant financial impact," Baker said. He said wages started at $8 an hour, which he called "not that bad" for the area, which has double-digit unemployment rates.

Travelocity opened the Clintwood call center in mid-2001 with plans to employ up to 500 people. But with the collapse of air travel following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the company retrenched, closing a California call center with 285 workers in October that year.

The company said Clintwood workers would be offered a severance package.

Travelocity joins a steady stream of companies moving call-center work to India, where costs are a fraction of U.S. expenses.

For example, call-center workers in India earn $250 to $400 per month, according to various reports, and office rents are $1 to $3 per square foot per year. That compares with U.S. wages of nearly $1,400 a month at $8 per hour and building rents of $10 and $15 per square foot per year.

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Jim Fuquay, (817) 390-7552 jfuquay@star-telegram.com

[harpu]

HEY WILLIE...hey Willie Green!

[ElectricStrawberry]

Just bought a ticket...and went straight through the airline....even though I coulda saved $4 with travelocity.

Bastards.

[Monty22]

"An Indian company, WNS North America"

grrrrrrrr

[Monty22]

Well, look how how much this company is losing. It's in the dying stages now. One sign of desperation is sending jobs to India..

I liked expedia more anyway when I used to fly.

[Betteboop]

HEY WILLIE...hey Willie Green!


What does that mean???

I guess I won't be using Travelocity any more!!!

[Living Free in NH]

Last night, I got a call from some dude in India who sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles. He attempted to sell me a service (for a credit card I have) I would have otherwise been intersted in. I hung up on him.

Today, I will be contacting my crdit card issuer to let them know.

[angkor]

I closed my Amex account of 20 years when they started outsourcing customer service to India (every time I called it would be a non-American rep and the telltale hisssss of an overseas connection).

Travelocity sucks anyway, I could never get a good international deal from it (best bet is to hit the airlines directly for special fares). For domestic, I drive whenever possible.

[A. Pole]

Travelocity.com, the online travel service, said Wednesday it expects to save $10 million a year by moving about 300 U.S. call-center jobs to India.

Interesting numbers. So they expect to save 33K per job. What whould be the saving if all 100M American jobs could be outsourced (assuming that 33K is typical)? It would be 3.3 trillion dollars - about half of national(fed gov) debt or 1.5 times of gov. spending in one year (federal only).

[Monty22]

Hey, those 100 million jobs are just ones Americans don't want anyway right? According to the free traders?

[harpu]

Willie Green is the forum's resident jobs lost whiner. He's the man who has perfected the 'sky is falling' cry when it comes to lost jobs.

Lost jobs, due to competitive pressure, are a way of life (unfortunately) but these idiot companies that keep sending telephone customer service jobs to countries where the use of english is SO BAD, is another story all together.

Dell, Oracle, Microsoft, Travelocity, and way too many more are blowing it. These foreign bozos may be well educated but I (and thousands of others) don't have the patience for trying to interpret what they're saying through their broken english.

[TXBSAFH]

I guess I won't be using Travelocity any more!!! Same here. I just had to cuss out American Express (Indian Express). I gpt someone on the phone and I could not understand a word he said.

[Swanks]

I have always used Travelocity because I was used to it, etc. I will now never use Travelocity again.

[Jim Cane]

But with the collapse of air travel following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the company retrenched, closing a California call center with 285 workers in October that year.

Travel is down more because of people's annoyance at the federalized petty polyester-clad tyrants rifling through their luggage, than because of any actual fear of terrorism.

That and having less travel money because WalMart doesn't pay as well as their old jobs at IBM.

[Glenn]

Willie Green is the forum's resident jobs lost whiner.

And a prolific poster. A man of his word who puts his money where his mouth is. An all-around good guy.

Stop your child-like taunting, please. It borders on abuse.

[Constitution Day]

[A. Pole]

Lost jobs, due to competitive pressure, are a way of life

Yeah, competitive pressure like OPIC, "free" trade agreements and special trade deals used as a tool of foreign policy.

[chimera]

Stop your child-like taunting, please. It borders on abuse.

I agree, it does. But Willie can handle the abuse. He stakes out a position and defends it consistently and well. Agree or not, I have to give him credit for that, as well as be appreciative for the opportunity to learn about another side of the coin.

[rocky88]

"Dell, Oracle, Microsoft, Travelocity, and way too many more are blowing it. These foreign bozos may be well educated but I (and thousands of others) don't have the patience for trying to interpret what they're saying through their broken english."

I agree - and I'd like to see a running list on this thread of companies that are "out-shoring" jobs. That way we can circulate the list via email address books and let others (that don't pay attention) know that they should not patronize these companies.

Hey, it worked for the French boycott - they are still feeling the pain.

I'll start here:

Dell
Oracle
Microsoft
Travelocity
Sprint

[BP2]

Dell, who has moved thousands of these job to India, have started to moved SOME back for business customers. Nothing more frustrating than spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on computers, then talk to someone who can't understand you when you call Tech Support. They've only done this for large business customers. That's why when I buy Dell I only do it through the business acct, not the home account. Sure wish the rest of Dell and other companies would catch a clue -- American customers hate dealing with customer service reps that are 10,000 miles away who can barely understand the language!!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Willie's on to something from time to time.