American will keep Reno Air’s LV reservation center

David Strow

Tuesday, June 29, 1999 | 11:43 a.m.

The Reno Air name may disappear on Aug. 31, but the airline's Las Vegas call center isn't vanishing with it.

Once thought in jeopardy of closure with the American Airlines acquisition, Reno Air's Las Vegas reservations center has added 75 jobs since December, many transfers from other American call centers around the country. The center has now topped out at 400 employees, and further growth is prevented by space issues, said American spokesman Tim Kincaid.

Far from being a cutback target, American considers the Las Vegas center to be a valuable infrastructure addition, he said.

"It's going to be with us from here on," Kincaid said. "We've actually been needing additional reservation capacity, so this is timely.

"It's a great facility, a great workforce there."

Kincaid wouldn't rule out further growth in the future in Las Vegas, but said that would be "speculation."

The Las Vegas facility will become the sixth in American's reservations network. The airline operates additional reservation centers in Fort Worth, Texas; Cincinnati, Hartford, Conn.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Cary, N.C.

In comparison to those centers, the Las Vegas center is small. The smallest next to Las Vegas is Hartford at 800, and the largest is Fort Worth's 2,500-employee center. Including Las Vegas, the American reservations network employs nearly 7,400 nationwide.

Once integrated into the American network, the Las Vegas facility's primary responsibility will be handling incoming calls from the West Coast. But since the call centers are all interlinked, it will be taking calls from across the nation for all American flights.

The 32,000-square-foot facility, located at 500 E. Warm Springs Road, has a capacity of 300 per shift. But the only 24-hour reservation center in American's network is in Cincinnati, so the Las Vegas center won't be adding night shifts, Kincaid said.

American intends to absorb Reno Air's operations by August 31. It announced plans to acquire Reno Air for $124 million in November, and completed its tender offer one month later.

The absorption of Reno Air will add 186 daily flights to American's schedule.

At McCarran International Airport, American now has only two destinations: Chicago-O'Hare and Dallas-Fort Worth. On Aug. 31, the Dallas-based airline will add Reno Air's direct flights between Las Vegas and Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Orange County, Calif.; and Reno. That will give American 28 daily flights at McCarran, but there are currently no plans to increase flights in and out of Las Vegas, Kincaid said. Reno Air is the fifth-largest carrier at McCarran.

Late last year, Reno Air shut down its reservations center in Reno, which had employed 135. Many of those jobs were moved from Reno to Las Vegas, and the local reservations center grew from 175 to more than 300 by year's end. The consolidation was announced prior to American's acquisition of the airline.