This has been tested by smaller companies for over a year... carrying BOTH ipad and paper flight bag materials. Freaking apple haters can go away. did someone REALLY ask about a cigarette charger?
326,000 gallons of fuel a year??? Thats just under a million dollars a year @ $3 a gallon (http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/economics/fuel_monitor/Pages/index.aspx). and alidan's estimate of about $600 per replaced bag is probably low but reasonable. No idea how often they replace the contents of the bags though. but 16 million copies a year? thats roughly $800,000 a year not counting binding, storage, shipping to various airlines and so on. That totals a minimum of 9 million in savings over 5 years for fuel and paper.
A mid range ipad2, no 3g is $600 so they spend 6.6 million retail (so apple gives them a break to 5-6 million). They pay for themselves in 3 years or less. No way to know an Ipads lifespan for now, but I would expect 5 years to be reasonable for the average Ipad (not counting in oops damage). But none of that includes Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck subscription cost... can't be cheap.
so jet fuel carbon - 3200 metric tons a year saved, so 16,000 metric tons over 5 years. plus 5 years of paper - about 80 million sheets, 9500 trees, 1.6 million gallons of water. That is about 186 metric tons of paper a year. estimate .2m/t of carbon per ton (saw as high as .32 and low as .1) and that will total another 186 m/t of carbon saved over 5 years.
http://ecolibris.blogspot.com/2011/03/apple-reduced-ipad-2-carbon-footprint.html
This site estimates Ipad2's carbon footprint for consumer use is 105kg over its lifespan. even at 150kg (for heavier business use, case, backup cables...), that means 11,000 ipads would have a carbon footprint of no more than 1625 metric tons over 5 years.
That is roughly a 14,500 m/t of carbon savings over 5 years. a net savings of 4-5 million dollars over 5 years not counting the subscription cost for the navigation App. And I would bet the app is faster and more up to date from what I have read. so efficiency and what not improvements may also occur. not to mention, I bet the flight crew prefers under 2 pounds for EFB than the 38 pound paper FB.