Fort Worth, Texas, Travel Technology Firm to Lay Off As Many As 600 Workers.

Byline: Andrea Ahles

Oct. 25--FORT WORTH, Texas--Sabre Holdings will cut its work force next year by as many as 600 workers as the Fort Worth travel technology company trims costs.

In a conference call with employees on Tuesday, Sabre Chief Executive Bill Hannigan told workers that there will be job cuts as the travel industry continues to suffer from the attacks of Sept. 11. However, all 6,000 employees will remain on the payroll through the end of the year and cuts will not be made until 2002.

Sabre spokesman Michael Berman could not confirm the specific number of layoffs. He said that next year's budget is in the planning stage, and it is not certain how many employees may be affected by an across-the-board work force reduction.

But other sources indicated that the cutbacks could reach 10 percent of the work force.

The company has 3,700 workers at its corporate headquarters in Fort Worth. Sabre has built a new corporate campus in Southlake and will start moving in this month.

"We've been able to avoid this kind of action so far," Berman said. "But we know we have to change our cost structure and as we're going through our 2002 planning process, we're trying to decide where those costs are going to come from."