Airline teeing up city as home for outsourced call centre
MANCHESTER looks like being one of two locations for more than 1,000 outsourced call centre jobs as British Airways bids to cut cots.
The International Airlines Group-owned company, has approached outsourcing candidates to bid to run its call centres in Manchester and Newcastle which employ about 1,400 people, delivering savings by moving jobs offshore and cutting the headcount.
The move is being forced by the downturn in the aviation industry which has put under the cosh, forcing the cost-cutting programme as it struggles to compete with the burgeoning low-cost airlines which have eaten into its market share.
Recently, BA said it would join no-frills airlines Ryanair and easyJet in charging passengers for mid-air meals. BA will sell M&S sandwiches, snacks and drinks on economy flights shorter than five hours from January next year under a new deal with the British retailer.
The airline is also planning to squeeze an extra 52 seats on its Boeing 777 flights by shrinking seating space from 2018.
IAG, which also owns Aer Lingus and Iberia, has wiped more than a billion pounds from its expected earnings over the next four years and will cut its spending plans by a third in a bid to weather the fall in sterling and sluggish demand across the travel industry.
The FTSE 100 giant told investors that its earnings would average €5.3bn (£4.7bn) a year between 2016 and 2020, down an average of £266m every year to 2020.
