Back in 2011 we reported that American Airlines was considering replacing their flight bags with iPads, ultimately saving a ton of weight while keeping things modern. Just to give you an idea, American Airlines has calculated that each flight bag will weigh around 35 pounds, and that’s per plane (per flight). They have estimated that by removing the flight bags, they should be able to save over $1 million each year. Well it looks like the American Airlines finally went ahead with their plan, and the folks at Gadling managed to get a tour of the cockpit of an American Airline plane to see what it would look like with iPads installed (video above).
So instead of lugging around heavy flight bags, pilots now get an iPad each and a Hypermac backup battery that will be able to extend the battery life of the iPad by an additional 24 hours. While going modern seems to be in everyone’s best interest, the folks at the FAA might not agree. It seems that with the tablets and their additional batteries, the FAA feels that this is tantamount to pilots carrying flight bags and may not necessarily see the point. In any case American Airlines has already gotten approval for the 777, 737, and MD-80 planes and are waiting for approval for their 757/767 fleet.