Australian airline Qantas has announced that it will be giving its pilots iPads for use during flights. Qantas has teamed up with mobile provider Telstra to bring more than 2200 64GB iPads to the cockpit to enable pilots to access operational information digitally, replacing paper charts, flight plans, manuals and forms for good, reports GeekZone.
Currently, Qantas prints around 18,000 pages a day, a figure that will be reduced to just 3000 pages with the introduction of iPads. Plus, the weight of the paper on board will drop by 44 pounds (20 kilograms). Each of the iPads will have two apps that have been developed specifically for use by pilots. One app is for flight charts and the other is developed by Qantas itself for other flight information. “The revolutionary capabilities of iPad technology, combined with the powerful customized apps, give our pilots the ability to replace cumbersome hard copies — saving time, resources and costs,” said Qantas Technical Pilot, Captain Alex Passerini. Several other airlines have also been scrapping paper for iPads over the past couple of years, including Alaska Air. It’s not just pilots that are getting their hands on iPads, U.K. officials are also being given iPads as desktop PC and laptop replacements in order to reduce printing costs. Scientists are also getting equipped with Apple’s tablet. Qantas already provides iPads for passengers on board certain of its flights, as do several other airlines.