Malaysia Airlines implements Paperless Cockpit with IT from Lufthansa Systems

Malaysia Airlines has commenced using Lufthansa Systems’ electronic flight bag solution, Lido/FlightBag, in its aircraft towards its journey to a paperless cockpit environment. Lido/FlightBag will significantly reduce Malaysia Airlines’ operational costs and ease the workload of its pilots by providing fast access to continually updated documents and data.

Lido/FlightBag integrates a variety of applications for the paperless planning and execution of flights. The solution also enables quick access to current operational data and other important flight-related documents such as navigation charts, technical publications and flight operation manuals. In addition, the platform can receive data from other cockpit systems. This guarantees that consistent information is available throughout the entire flight.

Malaysia Airlines’ Executive Vice President Flight Operations Captain Izham Ismail said, “Malaysia Airlines has always looked out to improve our flight operations. By opting for the Electronic Flight Bag, we have taken an important step towards more efficient processes. The future belongs to the paperless cockpit, and we are pleased to have an experienced partner like Lufthansa Systems by our side here. Due to a common data layer, the applications of this device can be highly integrated and automatic transfer of data between the applications reduces the risk of manual input mistakes thus enhancing safety of our flights. We expect to benefit not only from the weight reduction but improving efficiency in information management.”

“One great advantage of Lido/FlightBag is that it can be used with any class of EFB hardware and any type of aircraft. This is particularly important for airlines with mixed fleets, and it is yet another benefit for Malaysia Airlines,” explains Olivier Krüger, Senior Vice President Regional Management Asia Pacific at Lufthansa Systems. Lido/FlightBag can run as a Class 1 solution on notebooks, it can be permanently installed in the cockpit as a Class 2 solution or integrated with a Class 3 on-board information solution.

Airlines can significantly lower their costs per flight by using Lido/FlightBag instead of heavy paper documents in their cockpits. Lido/FlightBag also eliminates the printing and logistics costs for cockpit documents, enabling airlines to save up to USD 1,000 per aircraft per year. In all, a major international network carrier can save about 4.3 million dollars per year. Reduced fuel consumption and less paper consumption also ease the burden on the environment.

Malaysia Airlines serves over 100 destinations worldwide with a fleet of more than 80 short- and long-haul aircraft. Over the years, Malaysia Airlines has been recognized many times for its outstanding service, and its cabin crews have been voted the best in the world several times. In the recent World Travel Awards 2011, Malaysia Airlines won two awards, “Asia’s Leading Airline” and “Asia’s Leading Airline Lounge.”