Eckoh, one of Europe’s leading providers of outsourced automated solutions, and its partner, BT, have secured a three year contract to provide an automated flight information service to BAA. The service, which will provide flight status information for all flights into and out of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, is expected to handle more than 18,000 calls a day from members of the public.

The flight information service, which went live at Heathrow airport on 13th September and Gatwick on 14th November 2006, is expected to go live at Stansted in early 2007. Using advanced self-service technology to automate calls, the service will be available 24-hours a day, 365 days of the year.  Because it is linked directly to BAA’s own back end systems, which monitor the status of all flights into UK airports, information given to callers will be consistent, accurate and up-to-the-minute.

“With more than 11 million travellers passing through BAA Airports each month it is vital that we’re able to provide timely, accurate flight information at any time of the day or night,” says Tom Voice, director of BAA Retail IT.  “As Eckoh and BT’s track record in the travel sector has proven, the introduction of this automated service means we will have the capability to dramatically improve information availability whilst reducing the cost of providing this vital customer service.”

Hosted on Eckoh’s call processing platform, capable of handling up to 650,000 calls per hour and 8,000 calls simultaneously, callers will get direct access to flight information on a no-queue basis, even during busy periods or when unpredicted service disruptions and airport closures give rise to high call volumes.   

Nik Philpot, CEO of Eckoh, says; “This prestigious deal with BAA further strengthens Eckoh’s position within the UK’s travel and transport sector, where the market for automated information services is currently growing at around 25% per annum. Providing the travelling public with reliable information on a timely basis is a pre-requisite for all transport operators, and one which, we believe, is best met by the use of cost effective automation technology.”

Eckoh’s clients in the travel and transport sector include Parcelforce Worldwide and National Rail Enquiries, for which it operates the award winning TrainTracker™ service, the UK’s most advanced mass market telephone information line using speech recognition technology.