Paperless plane no flight of fancy at Easyjet

Easyjet is nearing the era of the paperless plane.

The UK's largest airline with a fleet of 220 Airbus aircraft will complete the fitting of Panasonic Toughpads, in place of laptops and printed navigational charts, in all of its cockpits by the end of this month.

Each aircraft currently carries about 25kg of paper, encompassing forms, checklists and detailed manuals. By removing paper completely, it can improve efficiency and costs, by reducing fuel burn and production and subsequent distribution to easyJet's 24 bases. This will save around half a million dollars in fuel costs alone. It will also reduce the cost of printing and distributing the paper versions of the manuals and forms.

Captain Brian Tyrrell, head of flight pperations for Easyjet said: “Eradicating paper, including the cumbersome manuals with thousands of pages on-board, by providing access to the same information via these devices is an important step in reducing weight but it also means we can improve the speed and efficiency of our communications by remotely saving information and providing crew with up to date information.”

Easyjet's annual fuel bill is around £1.2bn. According to the airline, an Easyjet passenger's carbon footprint is already 22% less than a passenger on a traditional airline flying on the same route and aircraft