For the first time in nearly nine years, Las Crucen Etta Hough won't go to work tomorrow at the Frontier Airlines call center on Hickory Loop. That's because with today's final shift -- set to end at midnight -- the facility will close its doors.
Hough said she is sad to see this day come.
"Very much so," she said. "We have a very tight-knit group. Everybody has been wonderful to work with."
There are still about 100 workers left at the facility, which at one time employed as many as 200. The airline opened the customer support center in the summer of 2000 and Ruben Servando Valdez has been the facilities manager ever since the first day.
He said that even after Frontier's parent company, Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc., announced earlier this year that the Las Cruces facility would close, the employees kept their heads up.
"People have continued to work hard, we have a remarkable group of people," Servando Valdez said. "I'm blessed to have worked with these people."
The genesis of the closing can be traced to April 2008, when Frontier filed for bankruptcy. This past summer, Republic Airways Holdings won a bankruptcy court auction for Frontier, with a plan to buy the carrier after a bid by Southwest Airlines was rejected. The deal was finalized in October and Republic announced it would consolidate functions between the airlines, including the call centers.
Las Cruces employees were given the opportunity to stay with the companyAdvertisementand move. Servando Valdez said 11 local workers have accepted and will relocate to Denver, where Frontier is based. As for himself, the only manager the Las Cruces call center has ever known said he plans to stay in the area.
"I'm going to be seeking employment here, in the El Paso-Las Cruces area," said Servando Valdez, an El Paso resident.
Hough said that representatives of the New Mexico Workforce Connection's Las Cruces office visited the call center to help workers who would soon be laid off. Usually, the state will put together a rapid response team to help the workers who will lose their jobs. The team offers information on training, unemployment benefits and other services.
"They were excellent," she said.
Source: lcsun-news.com
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