Posted on: Thursday, September 6, 2001

Cheap Tickets closing L.A. center

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Cheap Tickets Inc., the seller of discounted airline tickets and hotel rooms being acquired by Cendant Corp., is closing its Los Angeles call center as it consolidates its number of reservation centers.

About 110 jobs will be affected, spokeswoman Dawn Soper Lyon said.

In July, Cheap Tickets opened a call center in Tampa, Fla. The company also has call centers in Lakeport, Calif., Honolulu and Colorado Springs, Colo.

The closure is unrelated to Cendant's purchase of the company for $425 million.

Cheap Tickets said the displaced workers will be able to apply for job vacancies in other call centers.

Lyon said Cheap Tickets anticipates the closing of the Los Angeles call center will have no effect on the Honolulu call center.

She said Cheap Tickets is continuing to evaluate how its network of four call centers and Cendant's 26 call centers will fit together.

"What we do know is that the Hawai'i time zone is a nice complement to (Cendant's) network," she said. "While final decisions have not been made, we do anticipate continuing a presence in Honolulu."

Cheap Tickets has about 200 employees in its Honolulu call center. Lyon said she could not predict whether any Los Angeles employees will transfer to Honolulu.