Gazette, The (Colorado Springs) - Another Springs call center closing

A shift to online booking has led Cheap Tickets Inc. to close its 180-employee Colorado Springs reservation center.

Cheap Tickets told employees Tuesday that the call center will close Oct. 1.

The discount travel-booking company no longer needs as much call- center capacity because most of its customers now book their travel online, said Kate Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the travel distribution services unit of Cendant Corp., parent company of Cheap Tickets.

“Most of our business has shifted to online travel, and that is where we are focusing our efforts,” Sullivan said. “When Cheap Tickets was formed 17 years ago, it was developed under a totally different business model. Travel booking has since become totally automated.”

Cheap Tickets becomes the second major call center in less than a month to announce plans to close. MCI Inc. announced June 25 that it plans to shut its telemarketing operation at the Tiffany Square complex on Aug. 24 and lay off all 650 employees.

New York-based Cendant told affected employees it will give them an “industry standard” severance pay package and provide help in writing resumes, interviewing for jobs and other job-hunting skills, Sullivan said.

The Springs call center, which employed about 350 at its peak two years ago, also provided customer support for online booking, which will be shifted to the company’s remaining call centers in Aurora; Nashville, Tenn.; and Moore, Okla., Sullivan said.

Cheap Tickets opened the call center in April 1998 so it could hire reservation agents who lost their jobs when Western Pacific Airlines shut down two months earlier. The center moved about a year later to leased space in northwest Colorado Springs.

The company has two years left on its lease for 25,000 square feet at 4805 30th St., which probably will be offered for sublease. Cheap Tickets, acquired by Cendant in 2001, books airline flights, hotels, rental cars, cruises and vacation packages for consumers.

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