United Airlines To Replace Their Flight Bags With iPads

Posted by iunlock on Friday Sep 16, 2011 Under iPad

Yes, iPad will take over the airlines soon. It was just last week when news broke out that Delta Airlines tested iPads for their electronic flight bags. This is to replace the current flight bag of the pilot which includes various documents such as the Aircraft Operating Manual, the Operating Manual of the Flight Crew and all the Navigational Charts.

On the other hand, British Airways also made an announcement that they are giving away iPads to their cabin crew to further improve the customer service level up in the air. Now, it is United Airlines that announced they will deploy about 11,000 iPads to all their pilots including the ones of the Continental. This is to enhance more efficiency, improve safety and save some fuel.

United Airlines also made an announcement that they are converting into flight decks that are paperless with the electronic flight bags replacing all the flight manuals made in paper. This is the first for the major network carriers that will also render pilots paperless navigational charts through the iPad applications. The distribution started during the early parts of this month and all the pilots shall have them when the year ends.

Their iPads will have pre-installed application of the Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck that is for free in the Application store of iTunes for all its subscribers. It also includes a lot of other features such as the following:

  • Data driven enroute display that is interactive
  • Has display of the aircraft position and other airport diagrams
  • The airway manual text
  • Procedures for arrival, departure and approach
  • Notifications in chart change
  • In full color, high quality and vector based
  • Amazing zoom capabilities
  • Basic routing features

It also has its plans to save more fuel for the plane in the aspect that it will replace about 38 pounds of manuals made out of paper. It will then lessen the use of paper and even be proactive towards rendering green benefits. This then would reduce the fuel consumption. It will also help the airline save about 16 million sheets of paper every year which would be equal to about 1,900 trees not cut.

Let us just hope that they will realize that it is just right to put our gadgets into flight mode when taking off and landing.

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