FAA Certifies Surface 2 Tablets for Commercial Airlines

You can expect to see many more Microsoft developed tablets during air travel in the coming months.

In an effort to go completely paperless, Delta announced in September 2013 that the airline company would equip 11,000 of Delta pilots with Surface 2 tablets, saving the airline an estimated $13 million per year in fuel and associate costs. At that time, Delta was expecting the FAA to approve the use of the tablets for all phases of the flight to come sometime in 2014.

On February 10, 2014, the FAA fully authorized the use of Microsoft Surface 2 (running Windows RT) for use throughout the flight.

Rolling out the Surface 2 tablets across an entire fleet eliminates paper in the cockpit. A traditional flight bag includes an additional 38-pound of paper. Removing this additional weight, airlines can save and estimated 1.2 million gallons of fuel per year. That also equates to a 26-million-pound reduction in carbon emissions. In more general terms, that's like taking over 2,000 cars off the road. The exclusion of the 7.5 million sheets of paper will save an estimated 900 trees each year from destruction.