United has announced that it's rolling out some 11,000 iPads to its pilots for use as electronic flight bags (EFBs), replacing roughly 38 pounds of conventional paper charts and documentation that need to be lugged around — some 12,000 pages per pilot — which the airline says will lead to annual savings of 326,000 gallons of jet fuel. Though Alaska Airlines beat United to the paperless cockpit, United is the largest carrier to make the move (in fact, it's the largest carrier, period), which sets quite a precedent for an industry accustomed to changing technologies at a relatively glacial pace. The deployment is already underway, and United expects the EFBs to be in every pilot's hands by year-end.

Source: PRNewswire