CAPE TOWN Swiss call centre specialist Qualiflyer is set to open a hightech, multilingual international call centre in Cape Town in July to serve the world's airlines, as well as car rental firms and hotel chains.
Cape Town has become an increasingly popular location for international call centres due to its
geographic location in the same time zones as Western Europe and availability of English-speaking
staff.
The depreciation of the rand also means overheads can be kept down in dollar terms.
The Qualiflyer centre, to be situated at the V&A Waterfront, will be the eighth established
worldwide by the group, which is owned by Swissair, Sabena TAP Air Portugal and AOM French Airlines.
Calls from customers anywhere in the world are automatically routed to one of Qualiflyer's call
centres, each of which has operators fluent in a number of languages, including most major
European tongues and others ranging from Cantonese to Mandarin, Finish, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish
and Turkish.
Qualiflyer group CEO William Pattison said the company provided an outsourced internet and
telephone booking service, as well as frequent flyer member servicing. Cape Town was selected as
a call centre site due to the "high standard of telecommunications infrastructure, the
availability of staff with language skills and not least because of Cape Town's growing reputation
as a word-class destination".
"Qualiflyer prides itself on being able to provide partners with a lowcost, competitive,
multilingual and neutral reservation and service business for the benefit of all group partner
airlines. Cape Town has all we need to offer this."
More than 200 job opportunities will be created in the city, and training will be offered in
communications and international telephony.
The first Qualiflyer Group office was opened in April 1999 in London, where the company began to
handle all partner airline calls for the UK and Ireland, as well as calls for Qualiflyer frequent
flyer customers in Western Europe.
Following the success of the London office, Qualiflyer centres have opened in Barcelona, Istanbul,
Milan, Brisbane, Frankfurt, New York and Orebro, Sweden. After Cape Town, a centre will be opened
in Moncton, Canada, towards the end of the year.