Alaska Airlines is doing something pretty innovative in their cockpit.  They’re giving their pilots iPads for use as an Electronic Flight Bag.  Currently, pilots lug around as much as 25 pounds of paper that includes manuals of various sorts during their work day. 

Now they’ve got a 1.5 pound iPad and, by all reports, it only is lighter but quicker and easier to navigate to the required information.  It even saves them money over the long term because that is 20 pounds of weight times two they’re no longer carrying with them on every flight.

This was a great innovation and they expect to also include approach plates for various airports in the near future.  I would even expect to see this adopted for flight attendants (who also have to access large paper manuals) sometime in the future as the technology is proved through pilot use.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax