Delta to Use Microsoft’s Surface 2 Tablets in Place of Paper Manuals

Ina Fried:

Delta said on Monday that it plans to buy Surface 2 tablets using the Microsoft hardware to replace paper flight books for the airline’s 11,000 pilots.

The deployment will start later this year with pilots of 757 and 767 aircraft, with the goal of having all cockpits paperless by the end of next year. The Surface tablets will contain charts, reference documents and other information. Delta estimates that it can save $13 million in fuel costs by replacing the paper manuals.

Nice coup for Microsoft.

Intriguingly, AppleInsider reports:

“We fought hard for iPad,” a pilot working for the airline told AppleInsider. He described the Delta deal as being about money, travel contracts, and Delta’s Information Technology staff historically being “in bed” with Microsoft.

I’ll take that with a grain of AppleInsider-sized salt (i.e. a big chunk of salt) for now. Would love to see someone else report something similar.

★ Monday, 30 September 2013