Air Canada Signage Network Keeps Employees Up to Date

Mar 25, 2008 12:00 AM, By John W. DeWitt

Air Canada's bilingual digital signage network provides the airline's cabin crews in Montreal with broadcast-quality entertainment along with realtime updates of flight data and other important company information.

Ubiquitous digital signage at major airports informs and entertains the traveling public—but what about airline employees? The world’s 14th-largest commercial airline answers this question with Air Canada News (ACN), a broadcast-quality, bilingual digital-signage network that the airline recently piloted (no pun intended) in its Montréal In-Flight Service Crew Support Centre and In-Flight Service Training Centre.

“ACN ... gives us a modern and more innovative means of communicating with our cabin crew,” says Nathalie Lemyre, Air Canada's general manager, customer service innovation and planning.

Air Canada's mobile crew members don't always have computer access, so getting late-breaking information to them can be a challenge, according to Maria Porco, a spokesperson for X2O Media, which provided software and implementation for the network. Not only does the signage solution provide important reminders (in French and English) to staff in an appealing way, Porco says, it also lets Air Canada staff send updates in realtime when there are issues that need immediate attention—for example, if the reservation system goes down, staff can receive immediate updates on how to handle customers.

“The greatest impact of ACN is our ability to tailor our message to varying cabin crew interests,” Lemyre says. “By mixing information that is naturally of interest to our crews—such as weather information and human-interest pieces—with our own product and service information, we're better able to capture their attention and convey our message. We believe that arming our crew with up-to-date information will have a positive impact on the quality and consistency of our customer service.”