Delta Airlines is planning to buy 11,000 Microsoft Surface 2 tablets to replace 38-pound flight bag with maps and manual bundles and to say $13 million in fuel and other costs every year.
The tablets will be tested in Delta’s Boeing 757s and 767s flights, flown by same pilot groups. Delta is hopeful of an approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to use Surface tablets throughout the flight on all of its flights by next year’s end and is planning for a full-fledged rollout within two years.
Delta’s senior vice president for flight operations, Steve Dickson, said that the one of the reasons behind choosing a Microsoft Surface tablet was that it will be easier for Delta to give separate sections to the pilots for company and for their personal use. Pilots can install their personal software and keep their personal photos and other files in a separate personal section and use another section for installing Delta’s software, he added.
Another reason for picking Microsoft Surface tablets is that the tablets runs on the same Windows operating system as Delta’s training software, which will reduce the need to install different software for any other device, said Dickson. In August, Delta announced that its flight attendants will be provided Windows phones to process better seats, in-flight sales of food and other items.
The Microsoft Surface 2 tablets have been released just before a couple of weeks and it would need a thorough testing before it could be allowed for use during flights – hence the conservative two years full-roll time.
However, the decision by Delta has met with opposition from pilots according to AppleInsider. One of the pilots said “We fought hard for iPad.” Delta’s decision of going for iPads is rather surprising as back in 2011 it already started trailing Apple’s iPad and deployed over 4,500 of them at its airport restaurants last year.
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