Online travel firm Ebookers reported a 46 per cent rise in sales in the second quarter yesterday and said it would hire 20 extra staff at its call centre in Dublin, writes Jamie Smyth.

The company, which operates internet travel sites throughout Europe and employs 70 staff in the Republic, will create new positions for call centre consultants and web developers in Dublin.

The jobs expansion follows a decision by the company to use Dublin as a hub for overflow calls for all its European operations.

Ebookers's financial results for the second quarter show gross sales rose by 46 per cent to £71 million sterling (€111.3 million), up from £48 million during the same period of 2001.

This group cut its losses to £3.5 million during the quarter, down from £8.6 million during the same period of 2002. Turnover rose to £51 million during the second quarter, up from £40.1 million.

Ebookers reported a lower loss per share of 7 pence for the quarter, compared to 19 pence in the previous year.

The group's net cash balance was £23.9 million, down from £28.9 million last year.

Mr Nigel Addison Smith, chief financial officer, said the second multilingual customer support centre in Dublin, and a new low- cost back office centre in India, were building one of the industry's most competitive cost structures.

"These assets give us excellent low cost scalability and allow us to easily strip costs out of future acquisitions," he added.

In its trading statement issued yesterday, Ebookers said it was well positioned to take advantage of continuing growth in the online travel sector.