On Dec. 26, the Eastern China Regional Administration of CAAC has officially approved China Eastern Airlines Corp. (MU)'s trial operation of class 1 Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) in its Airbus A330 fleet, making China Eastern the first airline in China to deploy class 1 EFB in its cockpit.

EFB is an electronic device in cockpit to provide various handbooks, documents, flight routes, flight notice, weather information and others to the flight crew. It is equipped with basic calculation function and has a strong expedition ability, which will help create the "paperless cockpit". The application of EFB could achieve electronic flight documents, and it plays a vital role in the aspects of reducing operation costs, improving operation efficiency, improving safety, and so on.

In 2011, China Eastern has drawn up the proposal of EFB program, and launched the program in the end of that year. After the fully preparation, China Eastern submitted the application of qualification verify of class 1 EFB on Airbus A330 to the Eastern China Regional Administration in August 2012, and coordinated with the authority to accomplish works, including document investigation, ground cockpit evaluation, flight verification and so on.

China Eastern's EFB program deploys the world's most advanced tablet -- iPad -- as terminal, and the software is developed by the coordination of Information Department of China Eastern and Aviation Data Communication Corporation (ADCC). It has achieved electronic manual, electronic domestic flight routes, electronic performance charts, electronic flight data and other functions; meanwhile, the airline has established "China Eastern EFB ground management platform" and utilized internet database to manage electronic flight data, so as to solve the management problems of effectiveness and efficiency of flight data.

According to the proposal of EFB program, China Eastern is going to apply EFB in all of its fleet in two or three years. It is forecasted that the application of EFB will bring millions of economic benefit to the company, and uncountable benefit on operation efficiency and safety.

In recent years, China Eastern has actively responded to the watchword of "promoting the application of new technologies" which is promoted by CAAC. The airline has promoted the new technology applications on Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards (ETOPS), Performance Based Navigation (PBN), Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), Controller-Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC), EFB and so on, which has ensured the sustainability of flight safety, the punctuation of flight operation, as well as the reduction in cost.