American Airlines Allows Pilots To Use iPads Instead Of Flight Bags

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We’ve been following the story of iPads in airliners for some time now, and it seems  like the popular devices have a lot of room on airlines. Between the stories of iPads as entertainment devices for passengers, and as flight assistant devices for the crew, there’s a lot of value in these for air travelers of all stripes. And on American Airlines, you may see a lot more pilots toting iPad cases rather than their normal flight bags.

This Friday will mark the first time that pilots for American Airlines will be able to use iPads (iPad 2 models are also permitted) in place of their standard flight bag, which represents a substantial change from earlier policies the FAA had in place. But American Airlines will be the first ones to take the leap, and the iPad will represent a serious change in the operation.

See, iPads offer a whole lot of useful functions for pilots. They contain electronic versions of the standard flight manuals and charts, and also programs designed to make plotting easier as well. Updates can be had by rapid download instead of reprinting and replacing manuals. In fact, at last report, the iPad’s electronic versions of manuals replaced so many different paper products that it represented fully 35 pounds of weight loss per flight bag.

That doesn’t sound like much, of course–and compared against the weight load a typical airliner takes off with, it’s a drop in the bucket–but when you consider how many flight bags are on the plane, and how many flight bags are involved in planes all across the fleet that American Airlines owns and operates, it’s a pretty substantial savings. Sufficiently substantial that, at last report, switching from paper flight bags to iPads will represent fully $1.2 million in fuel savings every year. And while that will vary based on the price of fuel, that’s still a whole lot of savings.

So what do you guys think? Figure that this is a smart idea that will save a lot of money? Or a risky maneuver, depending on the iPad to come through instead of paper manuals that will likely never be subject to mechanical failure like an iPad may? We always like hearing from you, so head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!