Cheap Tickets may cut 81 jobs

By Susan Hooper
Advertiser Staff Writer

Cheap Tickets Inc. expects to lay off 81 employees in its Honolulu operations beginning Nov. 30, the company said yesterday.

The cutbacks, which are expected to be permanent, are the result of the planned purchase of the Honolulu-based discount travel ticket firm by New York company Cendant Corp., a Cheap Tickets spokeswoman said. They are not related to the tough times for tourism since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she said.

The majority of the jobs are operational support positions, including accounting and information technology, said spokeswoman Dawn Soper Lyon. "These specific functions duplicate functions that already exist within the Cendant structure."

Cheap Tickets has about 170 employees in its headquarters and core business operations in Honolulu, Lyon said. Most of the employees who will lose jobs come from that group, she said.

Another 200 Honolulu employees work at a Cheap Tickets call center.

Cendant also has about 700 employees working at Mainland call centers in Florida, California and Colorado, she said.

Lyon said the Honolulu layoffs depend on the successful completion of the Cendant deal. Cendant has extended to Oct. 5 its tender offer for shares of Cheap Tickets. The original offer was scheduled to expire Sept. 21, but Cendant had bought only 86 percent of the shares by then, Lyon said.