Good climate draws Reno Air

Monday, May 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Unless sunshine turns to water, Jim Kraus isn't counting on his crew missing many days of work.

That's sort of an inside joke that wasn't too funny in January.

On New Year's Day, the Truckee River crested and floodwaters submerged part of the Reno/Tahoe International Airport. The nearby Reno Air reservations center took on water despite efforts to sandbag the place.

Teletech, a Sherman Oaks, Calif., company that has been contracted by Reno Air to take overflow calls in busy times, was called on to answer the thousands of questions generated by the catastrophe.

Kraus, manager of planning and reservations at Reno Air's brand-new Las Vegas reservation center at 500 E. Warm Springs Road, said Southern Nevada's favorable climate and an ideal location at one of the Southern Beltway exits should keep the 160 work stations at the 32,000-square-foot McCarran Crossing facility occupied.

The new Las Vegas reservation center officially took its first call late last month and the second three-week class of 100 agents graduated on May 2, but the grand opening of the facility doesn't occur until Wednesday. On that day, Kraus and more than 200 new Las Vegas Reno Air employees will show off the Rockwell Spectrum call-directing computer system and the work areas set up in a serpentine pattern.

There are classrooms for training the 20 to 25 new recruits the company expects to get each month to replace workers that move on to better jobs within the company and interview rooms, a well-wired computer room, administrative offices and break rooms. In addition to the 160 existing slots, there's room for 140 new work stations.

"It's another move towards diversification for our community," Sommer Hollingsworth, executive director of the Nevada Development Authority, said of Reno Air's decision to locate in Las Vegas. "It's a good company and we're really pleased to have them here."

The Las Vegas reservation center is an upgrade to the Reno station where reservations director Tom Burns' troops take 20,000 to 25,000 calls a day, 24 hours a day. There's plenty of expansion capabilities in Las Vegas -- in addition to having space for more workers, the Las Vegas facility will initially start with only two shifts and be open from 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. daily.

In Reno, there are special desks for group sales and Spanish-speaking agents. A scoreboard at one end of the center lists how many agents are on duty, the call volume and the number of seconds a customer is on hold before speaking to an agent. The company likes to answer 80 percent of its calls in 20 seconds or less.

"We had quite a spectrum of applicants," Burns said of the new Las Vegas employees, many of them recruited at job fairs conducted by the company at the Orleans hotel-casino. "We got retired military, housewives, some just out of school and they're all ages."

Kraus, a new Las Vegas resident himself after his career path steered from America West Airlines in Phoenix, said the experience level is varied in the Las Vegas station as well. Some are experienced travel agents and former reservations agents from other airlines. Most are new to the industry and have no experience. But all of them have the ability to smile through the telephone headset.

"I can tell in two seconds if the person on the other end of the phone is having a good day," said Kraus. "Agents have to have a pleasant personality and excellent phone manners."

In training, new agents get classroom instruction and role-playing experience. They learn the Windows-based computer reservation system that has four split screens offering a variety of information at their fingertips.

Reservations agents aren't particularly well paid -- generally about $7 an hour -- but many employees sign on for advancement opportunities and one of the big fringe benefits of working for an airline, free travel.

"A lot of people consider this as a foot in the door, a way to get into the airline," said Kraus.

And then, there's the working conditions.

"It's really, really nice," said Burns.

While the Reno facility has several blocks of desks with work stations facing each other, the Las Vegas center's serpentine design allows interaction for those who need to or privacy for those who prefer that.

"The folks we have are learning the operations very quickly," added Kraus. "Out of 99 employees, only about two or three are having any difficulty. I'd say the caliber of employee we have here is pretty darn good."