ATLANTA (AP) — Delta Air Lines Inc. no longer is outsourcing reservation calls to India after years of complaints from customers who preferred to speak to someone in the United States.
Chief Executive Richard Anderson told employees in a recorded message late Thursday night that the world's biggest airline operator is in the process of bringing all customer calls back in-house in the U.S.
Customer calls were no longer forwarded to India as of the first quarter of this year, Anderson said. Foreign call centers remain in Jamaica and South Africa, though Anderson indicated that staffing at those locations likely will be reduced in the future as the global financial crisis cuts call volume.
"The customer acceptance of call centers in foreign countries is low, and our customers are not shy about letting us have that feedback," Anderson said.
Difficulty understanding the call center agents in India was a concern among some customers over the years.
Atlanta-based Delta said in 2002 that it would send some reservations work to India to save money. In 2004, amid an earlier bout with hard financial times, Delta shuttered one of its three call centers in India.
At the time, Delta said outsourcing some call center functions had saved Delta about $25 million a year.
After the Sept. 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 center to the Philippines.
A United spokeswoman said Friday that some of the call center work the airline was outsourcing to India has been brought back to the U.S., though some reservation calls are still forwarded there. United also has call center operations in Chicago, Detroit and Hawaii, she said.
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