Fedex scraps flight paper documents and gives pilots iPads
13 / 02 / 2014
GIANT US parcels company FedEx is scrapping 32 tonnes of paper whilst equipping its pilot workforce with 4,300 iPads.
The company has launched what it describes as ‘an environmentally-friendly initiative’ aimed at reducing its carbon footprint.
Removing this amount of paper from its entire aircraft fleet is the annual equivalent of removing from the road 780 cars that drive 12,000 miles per year on 20 miles per gallon, it says.
The iPads will replace paper navigation charts and other flight-operations documents so that all its pilots can, instead, access all necessary information onscreen. The tablets will supplement the existing onboard computer.
“For a pilot flying around the world, the navigation charts alone can add up to several thousand pages. All of the information changes every few weeks.
Removing and replacing individual pages, reprinting entire manuals, distributing them to pilots throughout the world has been a bi-weekly ritual at FedEx,” a spokesperson reveals.
Removing and replacing individual pages, reprinting entire manuals, distributing them to pilots throughout the world has been a bi-weekly ritual at FedEx,” a spokesperson reveals.
FedEx has been shipping and sending the equivalent of several phone books to each pilot every year – “and we also kept copies of the information on-board the aircraft for reference by the crews.”