August 23, 2011: United Airlines says it will hand out 11,000 iPads to its pilots as part of its “paperless flight deck” filled with essential data. It’s the largest rollout yet of Apple tablets as a replacement for the weighty flight bags traditionally carried by aircrews.
Going paperless saves around 16 million sheets of paper each year, the equivalent of 1,900 trees not cut down. Even better, the weight difference between the 1.5-pound iPad and the 40-pound flight bag saves an estimated 326,000 gallons of jet fuel per year!
iPads for pilots: Early airline adopters
When Apple launched the iPad in 2010, critics saw a giant iPhone looking for a reason to exist. Just a year later, United Airlines handed one to every pilot, replacing mountains of paper with a tablet that could put flight charts and critical information at their fingertips.
The move provided an early glimpse of a bigger revolution on the horizon. The iPad wasn’t merely creating a new category of consumer gadget, it was proving that a touchscreen computer could reshape serious, highly regulated industries. It helped turn the iPad from an experimental slab into a legitimate workplace tool.
United Airlines wasn’t the first airline to adopt the iPad. (Delta Air Lines technically became the first a couple of weeks earlier, although it only tested 22 devices.) But United’s commitment to Apple’s tablet was total.
“The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying,” said Capt. Fred Abbott, United’s senior vice president of flight operations, in a press release outlining the plan to distribute iPads to all United and Continental Airlines pilots. “The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight.”
The iPads came loaded with Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck, an industry app featuring interactive, data-driven navigation information and worldwide geo-referenced terminal charts. The app replaced flight manuals that contained around 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot.
The sky is the limit for iPad
Seeing the iPad find real-world applications at United Airlines and elsewhere in the commercial sector seemed heartwarming at the time. Especially since the Mac always struggled to make this kind of impact.
When it launched in 2010, the iPad faced criticism from snarky tech bloggers and other knee-jerk haters. They bemoaned the tablet’s lack of multitasking capabilities and camera, and made fun of its name. But within a year, the iPad was already outselling Apple’s Mac division and cementing its place as another home run for the company.
With more than 100,000 iPad-exclusive apps available in the iOS App Store by 2011, United Airlines’ commitment provided more proof of the versatility of Apple’s “Jesus tablet.” Whether used for reading newspapers and magazines, playing games, watching movies or helping fly planes, the iPad proved perfect.
Do you remember United Airlines’ switch to iPads from traditional pilot flight bags? When did you get your first iPad? Leave your comments below.
