SriLankan Airlines’ rolls out ‘Paperless Flight Decks’ with iPad EFBs

SriLankan Airlines entered into a new age of ‘iPad electronic flying’ by switching from using bulky mandatory paper manuals, to a sleek iPad. This makes the airline Asia’s first to use the iPad Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) which started on Aug 29^th, 2012.

The airline’s Muscat flight was the first to be operated utilising iPad Class 1 EFBs which are Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) that store all the information that are generally available in several paper manuals, physically carried by pilots for reference. The iPad EFB is an information management device displaying data intended primarily for flight-deck or cabin use.

“We have taken the lead in Asia to revolutionise flight deck, realising the vision of paperless flying,” said SriLankan’s Chairman, Nishantha Wickremasinghe.

Adding further SriLankan’s Chief Executive Officer, Kapila Chandrasena said: “We will also be first customer airline to commence ‘digital flying’ using the Fokker iPAD CLASS 2 installation, on the Airbus A340, A330 and A320. Effectively, the process will make flying that much easier, more efficient, accurate and greatly help the airline’s bottom line.”

By end October 2012, the entire technical flight crew of approximately 300 pilots will be using the iPad EFBs in the all Airbus fleet of A340s, A330s and A320 aircraft. The ‘green’ benefits of using iPad EFBs are also immense as there will be a drastic reduction in the use of thousands of sheets of paper and printing. iPad EFB usage will save approximately 264,000 gallons of jet fuel and in turn reduce tons of emissions.

By Charmaine Fernz, 29 August 2012, Wednesday 11:47 PM