United Airlines Manuals Are Now On iPads

One of the biggest benefits of tablet computing is that it encourages the preservation of trees and paper. United Airlines have announced this past week that they are replacing the flight decks for pilots with iPads. Instead of carrying 38 pounds of operating manuals, logbooks, and charts, United and Continental Airlines’ 11,000 pilots will be given a pre-loaded iPad. The device will be given to all of their pilots soon too.

Alaska Airlines, Delta, and British Airways have also started testing switching from paper to the iPad.

Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot’s flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold — it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption. The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons.

Switching to an iPad increases efficience and improves safety too. The electronic flight decks will allow pilots to update materials instead of waiting for printed distribution. There will also be a decrease in weight, which will be easier on a pilot’s luggage.

[United Press Release via Mashable]

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