Jeppesen Announces First Flight Using Class 2 EFB with Airport Moving Map

Continental Airlines has successfully completed the world’s first flight using Jeppesen Airport Moving Map on a Class 2 Electronic Flight Bag (EFB).

ENGLEWOOD, COLO. | 27 Feb 2009 | By Jeppesen

Jeppesen announced today that Continental Airlines has successfully completed the world’s first flight using Jeppesen Airport Moving Map on a Class 2 Electronic Flight Bag (EFB). Also on board were Jeppesen digital charts.

Continental plans an aggressive retrofit deployment of navAero Class 2 EFB systems starting with 12 airplanes the first month, leading to deployment on all Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft. Combined with Class 3 EFBs already deployed on Boeing 777 aircraft, Continental will have EFBs with Jeppesen Airport Moving Map and Jeppesen digital charts on most of its fleet.

“Jeppesen has provided navigation services for us for many years and we are pleased to partner with them on the implementation of this technology,” said Fred Abbott, vice president of flight operations for Continental Airlines.

Jeppesen was granted FAA Technical Standard Order (TSO) authorization for its Airport Moving Map application for Class 2 EFB devices in March 2008, and is the first and only company to have received such approval. Jeppesen Airport Moving Map uses a high resolution database to dynamically render maps of the airport, and through the use of GPS technology, show pilots their position (“own-ship”) on the airport surface. The result is much improved positional awareness among flight crews, which is a critical safety factor for reducing runway incursions during ground operations, especially at busy commercial airports with complex runway and taxiway layouts.

“This represents an important milestone as Jeppesen partners with Continental to increase efficiency on the flight deck and safety on the ground,” said Thomas Wede, Jeppesen senior vice president and general manager, Aviation. “By retrofitting their existing aircraft with Class 2 EFB hardware solutions and Jeppesen Airport Moving Map, Continental takes a major step forward in transitioning to a paperless flight deck and reducing the risk of runway incursions.”

The TSO-authorized Airport Moving Map software from Jeppesen is also selected for use by numerous airlines in the U.S. as part of the FAA Capstone 3 program. In this program, the FAA is providing approximately $600,000 to each airline to install equipment that will use Airport Moving Map technology. This program is part of the FAA’s effort to improve runway safety.

Jeppesen Airport Moving Map has been a featured application on Boeing’s highly successful Class 3 EFB since its introduction five years ago. To date more than 200 airplanes with Airport Moving Map capability have been delivered and are in operational service using Boeing Class 3 EFBs. With the TSO approval for Class 2 EFBs, Jeppesen is able to extend the reach of this important safety enabler as an attractive retrofit option for the large existing aviation fleet.