SriLankan to introduce iPad Flight Bag today

SriLankan Airlines will become Asia’s first airline to use the iPad Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) starting from Wednesday. SriLankan has entered the new age of ‘iPad electronic flying’ by switching from using bulky mandatory paper manuals, to a sleek 662 gram iPad from on Wednesday, the airline said. Pilots no longer need to lug 84 kilogrammes of paper manuals from aircraft to aircraft and from airport to airport and flip through pages, when the process is now streamlined to easy electronic searching.   UL 205 bound for Muscat is the first flight 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.   “SriLankan has taken the lead in Asia to revolutionise the flight deck, realising the vision of paperless flying and  becoming Asia’s first airline to fly with iPad EFBs” said SriLankan’s Chairman, Nishantha Wickremasinghe. “SriLankan will be the 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, as millions of rupees will be saved” said SriLankan’s Chief Executive Officer, Kapila Chandrasena. iPad EFB usage will also result in  reduced weight on board and paper clutter in the cockpit” reduce fuel usage due to more accurate takeoff & landing, weight and balance calculations” improved safety with on-board performance calculations” ability to increase payload with ‘real time’ performance calculations” improved route decisions” and in the whole process, save aircraft engine lifetime. Paul-Franck BIJOU, Quovadis CEO, says: ‘We are glad to be part of this initiative and to support SriLankan Airlines in moving to paperless operations. By choosing to implement both PBN and iPAD operations in 2012, SriLankan Airlines clearly shows its culture of continuous innovation.’ From gulftoday