American Airlines has announced that it will be deploying over 8,000 iPads for use in cockpits of all the planes the company operates. This will be the first major commercial airline company that will be fully using tablets in all its cockpits.
Previously American Airlines used a huge amount of paperwork that needed to be carried around. To give you an idea of how much was used, this switchover will save 24 million pages of paper documents (for 8000 iPads). The company has even calculated that it’ll save 400,000 gallons of gas a year, which costs $1.2m a year, so it represents quite a significant savings for both the environment and financially.
American Airlines has been toying with the idea since last year and it seems that initial tests proved them to be very useful.
An often overlooked aspect is how it’ll help the pilots' health – they previously had to carry 35kg of paperwork around with them, so this will help prevent back injuries. It’s a no-brainer really, given the ability for the iPad to easily replicate paper documents. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the scheme extend to more airline companies and elsewhere as businesses start to realize the benefits of a no-paper solution.