The Challenge
Envoy Air’s quest to become the leading regional airline depends on empowering its team with a wide variety of information they need to perform at their best. However, a patchwork of display technologies and content management tools was making it difficult to update employees about day-to-day items including weather events, shift schedules, performance data, and other relevant details. Content tended to take the form of static slide decks, which were primarily shared via USB sticks or e-mail. Although Envoy Air had developed some in-house solutions to address these issues, they knew there could be greater impact made.
The Solution
Leveraging its sister company American Airlines’ established partnership with Samsung, Envoy Air seamlessly integrated Samsung’s digital signage solutions and powerful content management system (CMS) to elevate internal communications and brand visibility. The airline implemented Samsung’s All-in-One IAC 130″ 2K Display at its corporate headquarters, serving as a dynamic centerpiece for high-impact content with best-in-class picture quality. Envoy Air also utilized Samsung’s CMS to deliver real-time, engaging content across conference rooms and employee break areas at multiple outstations, ultimately streamlining content distribution and enhancing the employee experience company-wide.
"To install the Samsung display — rather than go through the hassle of installing multiple panels and making sure they're aligned and having dividers in between them — was music to our ears."
– Adam Simmons, Director of Communications, Envoy Air
The Results
The combination of Samsung displays and its CMS has enabled Envoy Air to deliver a more engaging employee experience that extends from its executive branch to frontline staff. Content is always being updated quickly and seamlessly, which not only allows the corporate team to work in real time but enables local staff film their own on-site safety videos and upload them for distribution. Envoy Air is also using Samsung display technology for employee recognition programs, to assist with safety training and promote special events, making it that much easier for employees to do their day-to-day jobs effectively and successfully.
About Envoy
Envoy Air Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Airlines Group, operates more than 168 Embraer aircraft on 970 daily flights to over 165 destinations throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas and Caribbean.
More than 21,000 Envoy employees operate regional flights for American Airlines under the American Eagle brand and provide ground handling services for many American Airlines and American Eagle branded flights at 120 airport locations across North America and the Caribbean. The company was founded in 1998 as American Eagle Airlines, Inc., following the merger of several smaller regional carriers to create one of the largest regional airlines in the world. Envoy is headquartered in Irving, Texas, with hubs in Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, and Miami, with a large ground handling operation in Los Angeles.Connect with Envoy @EnvoyAirCareers on
The Challenge
Meeting employees where they are with up-to-the-minute data
While large regional jets are at the heart of Envoy Air’s fleet, its focus and energy flows from each and every employee to the customers it serves. That means it’s critical to keep everyone on the team updated with relevant information about pressing items including weather events and shift schedules.
Envoy Air is like other organizations in that it had established a corporate intranet to communicate important news. But much of its workforce — pilots, flight attendants, and ground crews — aren’t sitting at desks in front of a computer all day long.
This makes the strategic use of digital displays an important element in employee communications. Managing those displays and keeping content updated, however, was far from streamlined.
“When it came to screens and signage, it was higgledy-piggledy,” said Adam Simmons, Director of Communications at Envoy Air, as he explained the confusion and disorder. While some locations had higher-quality displays than others, for example, it was not uncommon for Envoy Air to rely on PowerPoint presentations loaded onto USB sticks that staff had to carry around. This fell short of its goal of offering dynamic, real-time data. “What we were displaying was a slide show, effectively.”
Luiz da Silva, Managing Director of Strategy and Operations Analysis at Envoy Air, explained that his team initially developed an in-house application to refresh general statistics on performance dashboards by pinging a website. These dashboards were primarily located at Envoy’s headquarters, but even there, the setup required minicomputers to be manually adapted to the existing displays.
“It wasn’t the most effective arrangement,” Simmons added. “At our headquarters, it was a wall with acrylic panels and a small monitor screen in the center. When we first moved in, we replaced the panels with stock photography, but the monitor ended up looking out of place and didn’t stand out — it just didn’t work well.”
The Solution
Simpler, streamlined installation and content management with Samsung displays and CMS
As a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Airlines Group, Envoy Air routes its audio and video resource requests through a centralized shared services team. When the team conducted a site assessment at Envoy Air’s headquarters, they recommended using Samsung’s CMS, which was already undergoing successful testing internally at American Airlines, along with Samsung’s digital signage solutions to meet Envoy’s growing communication needs.
Although Envoy had the option to explore alternatives, the simplicity and integration of Samsung’s all-on-one solution stood out. “We did have some flexibility to go outside of the agreement with Samsung, but none of the alternatives that we looked at were single panel, all-in-one solutions,” Simmons said. “They were very much like what we have in another room in our headquarters, where it’s multiple panels and then you need a solution to consolidate devices to make sure it all displays correctly.”
Envoy Air had also found there were reliability issues with existing solutions and challenging user experiences in setting them up. The decision to opt for Samsung’s All-in-One IAC 130″ 2K Display helped eliminate these pain points. With built-in connectivity and a streamlined setup process, Envoy Air was able to bypass the technical complexity of aligning multiple screens and managing separate components.
“To install the Samsung display — rather than go through the hassle of installing multiple panels and making sure they’re aligned and having dividers in between them — was music to our ears,” Simmons said.
Envoy Air ultimately installed Samsung’s single-panel displays in both the West and East buildings of their headquarters, creating a consistent, high-impact visual communication platform. With best-in-class LED picture quality, the displays deliver vivid colors, sharp contrast and clearly refined visuals. This is crucial in a dynamic environment where employees need to quickly absorb important information like flight status, weather updates, and operational messages. These displays, paired with Samsung’s CMS, now deliver dynamic, real-time content to key locations like conference rooms and employee break areas across multiple outstations, all while supporting one of the airline’s top priorities: maximizing the way employees communicate and improving operational efficiency.
“Samsung’s digital display technology provides the end-to-end customer experience, on the hardware and software side of the house,” said Daryll Newman, Senior Sales Manager at Samsung Electronics America. “What you’ll find is that we have a customized approach, ensuring that we understand the full scope of their project and that we design the approach to every aspect of the program we’re developing with our partner.”
The Technology
All-in-One IAC 130" 2K
Drawing on Samsung’s industry leadership experience and years of innovation in visual display technology, the IAC series produces images with vivid color expression, reduced noise, and a full range of grays and blacks.
The Results
Strengthened employee communication, recognition and collaboration across the board
Providing employees with information such as flight maps, safety alerts, and even credit card promotions that are not only timely but clear to see in a pinch was important to Envoy Air. With Samsung displays and a powerful CMS, they were able to do just that with ease. The communications team has also produced videos to provide a detailed tour of airports and bag rooms, deepening employees’ knowledge and engagement of Envoy Air’s growing operations.
For senior leaders, meanwhile, the CMS has allowed Luiz and his team to take snapshots from Envoy Air’s performance dashboards every 15 to 30 minutes and easily be shared on screen with the appropriate leaders. From the moment executives arrive at the office, they can see on screen how well operations are running before they even sit down and pull out their mobile devices. “Using Samsung’s CMS is a lot more reliable than having this sort of barnacle on the back of a screen and having to update all the settings there,” Simmons said.
Luiz agreed, adding that the CMS allows his team to rotate through a variety of content on a frequent basis. “We have on time performance data, maps of weather-related data, on-time or cancellation figures, and more,” he said. “This has been the tool that’s made life a lot easier in terms of reporting statistics, and I’m grateful for that.”
And Envoy Air isn’t just using Samsung displays and the CMS as a one-way communications mechanism — it’s also being utilized as a collaborative tool. Teams on the ground at local hubs such as Chicago are able to film their own ramp safety videos and upload them to the CMS for distribution. Simmons likened it to Envoy Air setting up its own internal TV channel that runs 24/7. “We’re not only pushing corporate headquarters content out,” Simmons said. “Samsung’s CMS has enabled the hubs to be more proactive with their communications as well.”
An Envoy Air location in Phoenix took communication even further by displaying QR codes on the Samsung displays, which employees can scan on their mobile devices. This brings up more detailed updates and provides employees with a simple way to ask questions and share other kinds of feedback. “Not everyone’s checking emails, and emails aren’t the most exciting things to read — especially when it comes from a corporate communications account,” Simmons pointed out. “Having this more dynamic screen that’s just in the background has been better received from our frontline teams.”
Within its corporate headquarters, Envoy Air uses Samsung’s CMS to show content during training sessions for pilots and mechanics, as well as special series to celebrate events like Women’s History Month. Envoy Air was able to raise awareness of special “Safety Days” run at locations such as Los Angeles and Miami using the CMS, too.
Envoy Air has also used Samsung’s CMS to raise the visibility of its employee recognition efforts. This not only includes highlighting employees of the month, but running interviews with experts in areas such as aircraft maintenance and safety compliance. Even as potential new hires come into headquarters lobby for job interviews, Samsung’s All-in-One IAC 130″ 2K Display allows Envoy Air to showcase the full scope of its operations, creating a strong first impression, Simmons said. For existing team members, having content distributed via Samsung’s CMS to the break rooms has changed everyday behavior.
“Before, there weren’t many opportunities to catch company updates during a shift,” Simmons said. “Now, you’ll see people stopping in the break rooms to check the screens and catch up on what’s new or coming next.”
Executives do the same thing when they look at what’s being shown on screen in the lobby at headquarters, Simmons added.
“We put a lot of work into the videos that we do, and it’s relevant content. But the biggest challenge had just been getting people to watch it,” he said. “Now, with Samsung’s CMS, it has amplified what we do, and really boosted engagement from the executive group to those on the front lines.”
