THE outsourcing of Air Pacific's reservation department to Mindpearl has doubled the employment opportunities in this country, says airline managing director John Campbell.
Mr Campbell said more than 30 jobs had been created by outsourcing and centralising the airline's reservations functions.
"Based on precedent, it appears the decision to outsource reservations has, overall, produced positive results for employment in Fiji and an acceptable outcome for nearly all of Air Pacific's former reservations employees," he said.
Mr Campbell said reservation units in Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America would be closed as well.
"Those jobs will be transferred to Fiji," he said.
Mr Campbell said that only two out of the 17 employees have accepted their redundancy package, one took his retirement back and the remaining 14 had been relocated to other jobs within Air Pacific.
"Those two former staff may apply for new vacancies at Air Pacific and if successful will keep their redundancy payments," he said.
Mr Campbell said they were aware of the trade dispute filed by the Transport Workers Union.
"As a matter of policy we never discuss industrial relations issues via the media but we are following the due process of the dispute machinery," he said.
Union general secretary Kamlesh Kumar said the union filed an employment dispute with the Labour Department regarding Air Pacific's refusal to negotiate the redundancy packages offered to reservations staff.
Mr Kumar said they had filed the dispute a week ago and had received acknowledgment from the department that the dispute was being processed.
"We had asked the airline to negotiate the sum offered in the redundancy packages but it refused so that was one of the issues under the dispute filed. The other issue pertains to some of the five staff who have been retained by the airline," he said.
Mr Kumar said of those retained, some had been offered jobs at locations outside Nadi.
"So we asked Air Pacific to consider relocation expenses and it has also refused this request so this issue has also been listed in the dispute," he said.
Mr Kumar said they were still waiting for the department to respond to the issues they had raised in the dispute.
He said they also had two disciplinary cases before the arbitration that were pending resolutions.
