iPad App Tracks Airline Maintenance
Here’s a question for the nervous flyers: would you be reassured to know that an iPad was scheduling your plane’s upkeep?
Flightdocs, a Florida-based company that helps airlines keep track of the moving parts that keep the friendly skies safe, has just launched an iPad app.
The Mobile Information Center is offered free on iTunes to companies who already subscribe to the maintenance software.
After seeing how iPads have replaced training manuals and flight charts in the cockpit, it’s easy to see how having a small tablet with access to the entire fleet and its maintenance records would come in handy – and we hope for more pressing things than the “torn carpet” noted in the screenshot above.
Via the app, eagle-eyed staff can submit discrepancies, retrieve maintenance due lists, update aircraft times, review airworthiness directives and service bulletins as well as contact Flightdocs customer service.
“By integrating the use of the iPad into Flightdocs, our operators will see an immediate reduction in their workload, improved operational efficiency and lower operating costs,” said Flightdocs president Rick Heine in a presser. “The in-flight squawk capabilities could save our operators thousands of dollars per incident in troubleshooting alone.”
The only thing worrying me? Flightdocs currently services only 2,500 aircraft and 125 models worldwide, making me wonder how everyone else is keeping track of these things.
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on 
