We previously covered Alaska Airlines’s authorization to replace bulky in-flight charts and manuals with the iPad. Now the first major airline has followed suit. United Airlines has announced it will be deploying 11,000 iPads to serve the same function for United and Continental’s fleet of airliners.
“The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying,” said Captain Fred Abbott, United’s senior vice president of flight operations, in a press release. “The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight.”
The plan will save an estimated 16 million sheets of paper and 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year.
E-reading isn’t just for e-books and newspapers. It can be for airline pilots, too.
