Australian carrier Qantas Airways Ltd. is closing its Tucson call center and cutting 1,500 jobs worldwide due to rising fuel costs and changing economic pressures, the company announced today.
The airline will close call centers in Tucson and London, concentrating that activity in Australia and New Zealand. In Tucson about 80 employees will be affected, Qantas spokeswoman Holly Williams said in an e-mail.
Qantas also canceled plans to hire an additional 1,200 employees after deciding not to implement its budgeted flight growth in the coming fiscal year. The aviation industry is facing a major crisis worldwide, and Qantas needed to act decisively to ensure its future, said CEO Geoff Dixon, according to a news release.
The announcement comes a little more than a month after Intuit Inc. announced plans to lay off about 150 people who provide phone support for customers at its Tucson call center.
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The company, which provides financial software such as TurboTax and QuickBooks, plans to lay off more than 10 percent of its Tucson work force, said Diane Carlini, Intuit corporate communications manager.