Malaysia Airlines embraces latest cockpit technology

Thursday, 19 January 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Malaysia Airlines will soon commence using the Lufthansa Systems Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) application suite on its brand new A330 fleet aircraft in its efforts to further enhance safety of flight operations and reduce costs.

The first of the A330-300 passenger aircraft will be fully operational with the EFB by July 2012 while the remaining A330 already in the fleet will be retrofitted progressively.

Built for the cockpit environment of all sectors of aviation, the EFB can eliminate paper from the cockpit, improve crew situational awareness, improve cockpit efficiency, productivity and safety.

Malaysia Airlines selected the Lufthansa Systems software suite including applications such as e-document viewer, e-charts viewer, airport moving map, performance calculation, e-flight folder and e-form for the EFB system as this guarantees consistent information availability throughout the entire flight while NavAero AB, a Sweden based company provides the EFB hardware.

Executive Vice President Flight Operations, Captain Izham Ismail said, “At Malaysia Airlines, we have 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.”

The EFB system deployment will include cross-connected dual systems with UMTS/HSDPA/3G cellular communications module for on-ground data transfer and allow for the depiction of own-ship position on an airport surface moving map application.

Malaysia Airlines has constantly strived to improve the safety and efficiency of its flight operations to be among Asia’s technological forefront. The introduction of EFB on its brand new A330-300 aircraft marks the bold commitment it is taking towards pushing its efficiency to a new level.

Malaysia Airlines has ordered 15 Airbus A330-300 and 4 Airbus A330 freighters to be delivered over the next three years, as part of its fleet renewal programme. It has to date received 5 passenger and 2 freighter aircraft. The passenger aircraft are currently deployed for selected return flight operations from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Bali and Shanghai.