MindPearl will take on Air Pacific staff: CEO

October 10, 2009 08:59:16 AM

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Global contact centre Mindpearl has indicated its willingness to hire Air Pacific staff recently laid off as a result of services outsourcing by the national airline. 

Mindpearl CEO William Pattison told FijiLive the company had asked all affected staff to apply for positions at Mindpearl, which is set to begin operations in Suva next month.

“All staff at Air Pacific were asked to apply for positions at Mindpearl. Irrespective if they joined Mindpearl or not, they would still receive their package from Air Pacific. For personal reasons it was impossible for some to consider relocating to Suva from Nadi. We are however very happy with the staff who have chosen to relocate,” Pattison said.

Early this week, Air Pacific revealed that 16 staff will be laid off as a result of the outsourcing of the airline’s reservations and ticketing services.

Pattison said Mindpearl immediately extended affected staff the invitation to apply for position at its Kalabo-tax-free-zone-based call center.

“They were advised of us this by myself within one hour of the press conference held by Air Pacific in Nadi,” he said.

“Air Pacific will not be the only customer we handle in Suva. We will be growing the office significantly over the next 3 years and we will be advertising and hiring on a regular basis. We do however have the staff numbers required for the Air Pacific account for our first call on 01 November 2009.”

Mindpearl, whose business background reveals its goals to provide “full contact centre facilities and services to a consortium of 11 airlines, flying globally to over 400 destinations across all time zones,” was established in 1999 and became independently owned in 2006. 

It has become a household name in the international airline business.

In Fiji, it has signed on Air Pacific and will handle all of the national airline’s reservations, ticket purchases, travel queries and booking functions but Pattison said most of its work will be offshore based.

“We didn’t come to Fiji planning to get Air Pacific.  We are very happy we’ve got them as a customer but that certainly wasn’t part of our criteria for coming here.  Air Pacific is going to constitute about 30 seats, it could move to 50, however, long term, our office will have 3000 people. So by far majority of the business will come from overseas,” Pattison had told Fiji Live in June. 

Four months on, “significant interests from outside Fiji” have been received by Mindpearl according to Pattison.