A leaked internal memo reveals Air India met with Apple to discuss “deep collaboration”. What’s Tim cooking?

A leaked Air India internal memo has revealed that officials from the airline met with Apple officials to discuss possible collaboration. The Air India team led by CEO Campbell Wilson recently paid a visit to Apple’s headquarters. The memo highlighted that the meeting was held to explore opportunities for deeper collaboration.

The leaked memo emanated from the CEO, Wilson, and was sent to the staff of the airline via email. It is unclear how the email was leaked to the public but it noted that the company officials visited Apple’s headquarters at Palo Alto. Air India had previously had discussions with Apple on using iPads to enhance inflight navigation for pilots.

There is already a precedent for using Apple iPads inside the cockpit. In 2021, Delta Airlines issued iPads to some of its pilots to help them quickly call up flight charts, equipment manuals, and ancillary data in flight. This was an alternative to the flight bag that pilots carry which can be weighty. The move was expected to make the in-flight activities of pilots to be quicker when communicating with the ground or flight crews.

Air India could be planning an introduction of iPads for its pilots to enhance flight operation. There has been a previous report back in January that stated that Air India has started purchasing iPad tablets for its flight crews. In addition, Wilson in his previous job as CEO of Soot Pte, deployed iPads in place of the in-flight entertainment equipment. Passengers were able to choose from a wider range of entertainment options while Scoot generated revenue from the rentals of the tablet.

The company also saved money in fuel costs as a result of the use of iPads during flights. The arrangement also saw the refitting of the planes with added capacity. The weights of each of the planes using iPads were reduced by about 7% while passenger capacity rose by 40%.

Back in May, Air India announced that it had become one of Apple’s biggest iPad customers. It is however unclear whether Air India has a more expansive collaboration with the Cupertino company beyond iPad deployment. The finer optics of this deep collaboration mentioned in the leaked memo, will be clarified soon, hopefully.

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