14 DAY TRIAL // United Continental Holdings, Inc., the parent company of United Airlines and Continental Airlines, has announced committing to a full transition to paperless flight decks by deploying 11,000 iPads as electronic flight bags that are to be handed to all United and Continental pilots.
Weighing less than 1.5 pounds, each iPad will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information.
Before the iPad proved its skills, all this had to be crammed in a pilot's flight bag, with some pilots even experiencing injuries because of the weight.
However, the electronic flight bags, in short EFB, will not only replace paper flight manuals. Through a native iPad application, the tablets will provide pilots with paperless aeronautical navigational charts.
According to United Airlines, distribution of Apple tablet computers began earlier this month, and all pilots will have them by year end.
"The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying," said Captain Fred Abbott, United's senior vice president of flight operations. "The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight."
Specifically, the app preloaded by the airline company on the iPads is Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck.
United touts the software as “the industry's premier app featuring interactive, data-driven enroute navigation information and worldwide geo-referenced terminal charts.”
United trusts the app because of the the enhanced full-color, high-quality information display which, according to them, “ensures the right information is displayed at the right time.”
"We are proud to partner with United Airlines on a project of this magnitude with Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck," said Mark Van Tine, president and CEO of Jeppesen.
"Jeppesen and United share a long and storied history that includes development of numerous innovations for the aviation industry,” added Van Tine. “We look forward to continuing this partnership in integrating our digital mobile solutions that increase efficiency, reduce costs and optimize operations."