40 jobs to go as Ryanair announces closure of call centre

Ryanair today announced that it plans to close its Dublin Telesales Operation (Ryanair Direct) at the end of May, which may lead to up to 40 redundancies as part of its cost reduction programme to combat record high oil prices.

Speaking today, Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said: "The decision to close our Dublin Telesales activity is a painful one. Sadly, the operation is no longer viable or cost competitive against a backdrop of dwindling demand for phone bookings while Internet bookings now account for over 99% of ticket sales.

Our existing Romanian and German call centres will continue to provide telesales services at 60% lower costs than Ryanair Direct. These kind of cost savings must be made if Ryanair is to remain Europe’s lowest cost airline in these difficult recessionary markets".

"Whilst we will be encouraging these telesales people to apply for other vacancies in Ryanair, should they not apply or be successful, then they will be made redundant at the end of May," he added.