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Delta Airlines to close call centres in India

WASHINGTON: Delta Airlines, world’s largest airline, has announced that it will close down its Indian call centres. Airline officials said the decision was driven by poor customer feedback. This could come as a major setback to India’s flourishing call centres that provide employment to thousands of youths across the country. Delta’s call in India was handled by a call centre of Wipro.

Media reports said Richard Anderson, the airline’s chief executive, told employees in a recorded message on Thursday that Delta had stopped forwarding calls to India in the first quarter and would be bringing the function back in-house in the U.S. “The customer acceptance of call centres in foreign countries is low and our customers were not shy about letting us have that feedback,” Mr. Anderson said.

A Delta spokesman was quoted as saying by The Boston Globe that the airlines has hired about 4,500 call-centre workers in the U.S. after it ended its current outsourcing operations in India. However, Delta’s call centres in Jamaica and South Africa would continue, the spokesman said. In February, United Airlines too had announced to end its 165 overseas call centre jobs. After the merger of the North West Airlines, Delta is now the world’s largest carrier.

It had sent its call centres to India in 2002 to save money, which at that time was estimated to be about $25 million a year. — PTI

AP reports:

Mr. Anderson indicated that staffing at Jamaica and South Africa locations would be reduced in future as the global financial crisis cuts call volume.

After September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, UAL Corp’s United Airlines outsourced some reservation calls to India. In 2007, Hawaiian Airlines outsourced most of its reservation call centres to the Philippines.

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