Sri Lankan airline swaps paper manuals for iPads

The country's national carrier has replaced pilots' bulky paper manuals with Apple's tablet computers.

By

Agence France-Presse

Wed, Aug 29 2012 at 8:56 AM

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Green Business, Air Travel, Apple, iPad, iPad

Sri Lankan Airlines said it was the first carrier in Asia to dump the several volumes from the cockpit, including manuals on aircraft operation and emergency procedures as well as navigation charts. (Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP)

Sri Lanka's national carrier announced Wednesday it had jettisoned pilots' bulky paper manuals weighing 184 pounds in favor of iPads that weigh just 660 grams.

Sri Lankan Airlines said it was the first carrier in Asia to dump the several volumes from the cockpit, including manuals on aircraft operation and emergency procedures as well as navigation charts.

"Sri Lankan has taken the lead in Asia to revolutionize the flight deck... becoming Asia's first airline to fly with iPad EFBs (electronic flight bags)," chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe said.

Permission for the switch-over to lightweight technology was granted by Sri Lankan air safety regulators.

The carrier, which made a loss of 19 billion rupees ($170 million) last year, operates a fleet of 21 aircraft, including six A340s.