SIX hundred new jobs have been created in the past two months at the new Air Miles Centre which opened at Birchwood Point this week, and a further 200 will be in place by Christmas.

The centre specialises in sales and customer services.

The £25m state of the art centre is the first to be opened by Air Miles, in addition to its headquarters in Crawley.

A press spokeswoman told the GUARDIAN that the headquarters, employing 1,000 people, was full to capacity."We chose Warrington for the new centre because of its good communications, availability of skilled staff and a good site," she said.

Air Miles has completed the first stage of its centre, and the second, which will include staff facilities such as a creche, gym and catering provisions, will be up and running by April.

The centre's work includes offering travel advice to Air Miles 4.5m collectors.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.