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US Airways Brings Back Call Center Jobs from Overseas

By Madhubanti Rudra
TMCnet Contributor

US Airways recently announced the addition of 400 new hires to its workforce. Through this announcement, US Airways breathed fresh oxygen in an economy, where plunging unemployment rate is a serious concern. More importantly, with the new hires, the organization has been able to bring back a substantial chunk of jobs that used to be previously handled outside of the United States.

The new appointments were made to fill up the posts in the US Airways’ call centers in Winston-Salem, N.C., Phoenix, and Reno, Nev. The new positions will help the airline to handle all general reservations sales calls originating in the United States. The posts are contractual, the airline revealed in a press release.

This onshore project is part of the airline’s agreement with the Airline Customer Service Employee Association – CWA (News - Alert) and IBT, which represents more than 6,000 reservations and airport customer service employees employed by US Airways. According to the airline CEO Chairman and CEO Doug Parker, the new hire is a testament to the airline’s positive relationship with the Airline Customer Service Employee Association.

“The addition of 400 jobs is extremely good news for these three communities, for the CWA/IBT, and for our customers who will continue to receive the outstanding service they have come to associate with US Airways,” Parker noted in a statement.

As a part of its initiative relating to bringing jobs back onshore, US Airways launched the domestic airline industry's first Natural Language Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system in July, this year. The new automated system has been designed to offer the airline's customers a wide range of self-service capabilities, such as flight information, upgrade status and Dividend Miles account details for a superior travel experience.

In addition to delivering various self service capabilities, the IVR technology is also closely integrated with US Airways' reservations centers. This gives the call center agents full information about a customer, such as their name and existing reservation, as they are connected with callers. This makes the interaction easier and more efficient for customers.

“The CWA/IBT Association Union is excited to work with US Airways to bring jobs back into the Reservations work group. Nothing speaks louder than solidarity, when we all work together for a successful airline. We welcome our new Brothers and Sisters, helping us to provide excellent customer service to our passengers,” noted Velvet Hawthorne, IBT/CWA Association Chairperson and CWA Staff Representative.

In addition to its three reservations call centers in the United States, US Airways, which handles approximately 18 million calls annually also operates a call center in Liverpool, England, which handles calls from customers located in international locations. US Airways further revealed in the release that it is going to employ 1,900 agents by the end of 2011.

The airline also hosted media events to celebrate 150 new jobs at its Reservations center in Phoenix and 200 new jobs in Winston-Salem in 2nd and 3rd November respectively.

Last week, US Airways reported smaller third–quarter profits after its jet fuel bills spiked, showing the limits of the "charge more and fly less" strategy that airlines are relying on. As a part of this strategy, US Airways along with other four big airlines took the policy of raising fares to cover those big fuel bills, and to fly only when and where they can do it profitably.

But the policy produced mixed result for the airlines; while United and US Airways made small profits, American Airlines had higher expenses in addition to fuel, and parent AMR Corp. lost $162 million. Southwest Airlines Co. lost $140 million on fuel hedges. Only Delta Air Lines Inc. reported a bigger profit compared with a year ago, up 50 percent to $549 million.