Emirates’ new contact centre takes off

MIDDLE East airline Emirates, has opened its new European mult-ilingual customer contact centre near Manchester Airport.

The Dubai-based carrier has taken a 23,543 sq ft at Manchester Business Park, having relocated its 350-strong team from offices in nearby Wilmslow.

The facility is one of the airline’s largest contact centres in the world, and is its biggest employment centre in the UK. Its staff are drawn from 30 nations and handle customer service calls from across Europe in nine languages.

Karen Bell-Wright, senior vice-president (Retail & Contact Centre) and Laurie Berryman, Vice President UK, welcomed guests to the new office.

Bell-Wright said: “We’re pleased to open our new customer contact facility in a key region for our UK operation. We employ close to 400 people in Manchester, including our colleagues at Manchester Airport. At Emirates, we pride ourselves on our unparalleled customer service. This new site will provide our talented people the perfect work environment to offer our customers in Europe an excellent service throughout all stages of their journey with us.

“Manchester is the perfect location for our customer contact centre, as we are able to attract so many talented individuals with broad language skills from this multi-cultural city. Our staff speak fluently to our customers in nine different languages, including English, French, German, Italian and Spanish to name a few.”

Berryman added: “Since our first Emirates flight from Manchester in 1990, we’ve carried almost eight million passengers to and from this great city, connecting them to destinations around the globe. In addition to launching a second daily Airbus A380 service in February, the opening of this new contact centre has allowed us to further invest in the North West region and we look forward to our future here.”
 
The airline, which will celebrate its 25th anniverary at Manchester in November,  operates three daily flights between Dubai and Manchester, two of which are now operated by A380s and the third by a Boeing 777.