Alaska Airlines Using iPads For Flight Manuals

First it was schools and universities, and now airlines are substituting iPads for sizeable amounts of paper documents.

Last week, Alaska Airlines announced its intentions to replace pilots’ 25-pound paper flight manuals with iPads by mid-June. Alaska Airlines is the first major domestic airline to do so. The initiative will “enhance flight safety, improve efficiency and protect the environment,” the company believes.

Pilots will receive iPads preloaded with GoodReader, a PDF reader application that will contain all of the necessary flight documents. The documents have been upgraded with color graphics and hyperlinks for better reference.

Gary Beck, Alaska Airlines vice president of flight operations, said the airline had been “exploring the idea of an electronic flight bag for several years” but, until the iPad, had “never found a device we really liked.”