Clear Skies, Connected Communities: A Day with Cape Air on Cape Cod

I arrived in Hyannis on a thick, humid evening—the kind that softens streetlights and carries the smell of the sea. By morning, the Cape was wide awake: clapboard houses, the harbor, and hydrangeas everywhere—blues, purples, pinks you can’t ignore. At the Hyannis airport, I met a couple heading to Nantucket for a friend’s “last hurrah” before he sold his house and left the island. It was a small moment, but it said everything about Cape Air: this isn’t just an airline—it’s a way to show up for life.

We didn’t just film at the Cape Air office and Hyannis airport. We also visited Tom Rocharz at home, where two excellent co-workers—Jackson, a Great Pyrenees, and Jarvis, a large Golden Retriever—keep him company during the day. The flexibility Tom has built into the contact center means he can step out for a dog walk and still keep an eye on operations. It’s the balance he wants for his team, too.

Customer experience is your brandlink to this section

Tom didn’t warm up—he lit up. Cape Air’s mantra, he told me, is “MOCHA HaGoTDI”—short for Making Our Customers Happy And Having A Good Time Doing It. That says a lot about the airline’s personality, but his follow-through said even more.

“When passengers fly with Cape Air, I want them to feel like they’re special. You’re not sharing an aircraft with 30, 50, or 150 other people; it’s a very personal experience. For us, customer experience is our brand. It is our business.”

And on the team’s culture of moving fast:

“We want to be fast on our feet,” says Tom. “If technology needs to change to make that happen, we don’t want to wait for it. We want to do it ourselves.”

He walked me through the scale behind the charm: three brick-and-mortar contact centers (Rockland, ME; Rutland, VT; Mayagüez, PR) plus a distributed remote team supporting an airline of roughly 600–700 employees. On paper, they’re a regional carrier. In practice, they’re a lifeline—connecting rural towns in New England and eastern Montana to hubs like Boston and Billings, and getting folks in Vieques, Mayagüez, and the Virgin Islands to the appointments and services that can’t wait.

“We know that we’re a lifeline for folks. Cape Air is providing people with the necessities of life and also with the fun things in life.”

Cape Cod, up closelink to this section

Cape Cod is pure postcard by day—especially in hydrangea season—but it’s also practical in a way postcards never show. Ferries get canceled. Roads are gridlocked in summer. Weather plays games. That’s why this story isn’t just about airplanes; it’s about access. It’s doctors’ visits from remote towns. It’s students getting back to campus. It’s that Nantucket send-off—friends are able to be there because flights make the distance doable.

Natalia Xavier, who grew up in the Cape Air operation from ticket counter to management, put it simply:

“We are a community-based airline. We provide a service to areas that are underserved and may not have alternative transportation options. We are providing a lifeline.”

And the bar for service is high—by design:

“We want to make sure that we exceed expectations to show the community they can trust us.”

The turning point (and why 8x8)link to this section

When Tom joined, Cape Air had just decided to retire an aging, on-prem system held together—no exaggeration—by parts found on eBay. Call recording, monitoring, and callback features were failing. The team needed reliability, scalability, and a partner who could help them grow into digital channels (voice, chat, SMS) without blowing up costs.

Tom was plainspoken about the selection criteria:

“When Cape Air was looking for a new telephony provider, number one was affordability, a photo finish second was reliability. We needed a phone system that is robust and reliable.”

And on how the relationship feels today:

“Cape Air’s partnership with 8x8 has been nothing short of impressive, robust, and enduring,” says Tom.

The migration rolled out in phases—headquarters, then the Northeast, then Montana and the Caribbean—but took only weeks, not months. Suddenly, remote work wasn’t just possible; it was better. Supervisors could monitor quality, coach in real time, and pull analytics without filing IT tickets.

What changed: outcomes that matterlink to this section

Cape Air’s team will be the first to tell you: tools don’t create great service; people do. But the right stack makes great service repeatable—especially when operations span islands, time zones, and seasons. Since implementing 8x8, Cape Air reports:

• 90% fewer abandoned calls
• 95% reduction in average hold time
• 80% drop in contact center employee attrition
• 85% improvement in the average speed of answer

Behind those headline wins, day-to-day got smarter, too. Supervisors lean on live transcriptions and quality analytics to coach quickly. Agents handle more with less stress because queues stay under control and first-call resolution is the norm.

Natalia loves the balance of AI and human care:

“I believe AI is an amazing tool, but I think that the human touch is the key.”

Tom, at work—and at homelink to this section

Remote flexibility isn’t just a perk; it’s how Tom keeps the operation humming without losing the human stuff:

“I’m not worried about missing an important work call because I’ve got to take the dogs to do their business.”

Aviation isn’t just Tom’s job; it’s a lifelong passion. When he’s not tuning a queue or checking dashboards, you’ll find him beekeeping, scuba diving, or bringing old trucks back to life. The theme is consistent: patience, precision, and a steady hand—pretty much the same toolkit he brings to Cape Air’s customer experience.

The lifeline gets strongerlink to this section

There’s more coming. The team is rolling out web chat and expanding SMS, meeting travelers where they already are, while piloting an AI assistant to clear common questions so humans can focus on the nuanced stuff. None of it replaces that “nine-seats, we know your name” intimacy. It protects it, by keeping the lines clear when weather, maintenance, or life happens.

Tom’s definition of success is beautifully airline:

“Our goal is to fly every single flight that we put out for sale and do it as safely as possible. Nothing matters to us more than the safety of our passengers and crew, and staff.”

Walking back across the humid Hyannis tarmac as gulls flew above, mine was simpler: keep Cape Cod—and every small community in their network—connected. With the right people, process, and platform, they’re doing exactly that.

To learn more, check out the Cape Air video and case study.