United’s iPad Deployment Lets Pilots Shed Excess Baggage

Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has approved the iPad as a viable alternative to paper-based flight charts, more airlines are adopting it. The latest: United Airlines, which plans to give iPads to some 11,000 pilots, replacing the approximately 38 pounds of manuals, charts and logbooks that accompany them on every flight with a single 1.5 pound tablet.

It’s one of the more massive deployments to date, and once it’s up and running, United expects its paperless flight-deck initiative will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper and an astonishing 326,000 gallons of jet fuel per year.