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British Airways has finished rolling out the Communigate Pro unified communications platform, connecting its 30,000 frontline ground and air staff to mobile email.

The staff work in baggage and maintenance areas, on the tarmac, or in the company’s large air fleet, rather than at a fixed PC. They needed to be able to access their emails at all times, so that they could be kept up to date with important messages, the airline said.

BA chose Communigate Pro following a series of successful field tests in customer service, in-flight, operations and engineering units. The system relies on dynamic clustering, which the supplier said avoided single points of failure and promised strong uptime. It also enabled non-interruptive updates and modifications.

The implementation is part of the airline’s employee self service initiative, which gives online administration tools to staff. The ESS was crucial during last year’s airport security changes, as it kept staff up to date on the latest news and policies every two hours.

Paul Coby, chief information officer at BA, said the initiative had “delivered an enormous business transformational bang for a very small investment buck. It works because it contains vital services, is easily accessible and above all, is easy to use.”