American Airlines to give frontline employees iPhone 12 and 7th-gen iPad

American Airlines has started to give frontline employees new iPhone 12 devices and seventh-generation iPads, according to a memo shared by CIO Maya Leibman.

As shared by View From the Wing last week, American Airlines’ chief information officer Maya Leibman said the company is replacing current mobile devices for all frontline employees as well as maintenance workers with new Apple mobile devices.

According to the memo shared by the site, American Airlines will be giving iPhone 12s to airport agents at DCA and seventh-generation iPads to AMTs in Line Maintenance workers.

In the past year, we’ve seen how technology has kept us personally connected in countless ways. (…)  We have decided to consolidate our frontline mobile devices onto Apple iPhones and iPads. Not only will this next-generation technology improve our customer and team member experience, but it will also allow our IT developers to create new apps on a single operating platform, Apple’s iOS.

Here’s how American Airlines is handling the devices’ replacement:

• Airport agents at DCA already started testing iPhone 12s. Following a successful test program, the devices will be rolled out to all agents over the next year, allowing agents to offer service to customers wherever they are in a terminal.
• AMTs in Line Maintenance have started receiving 7th generation iPads to support the majority of their work. Once that rollout is complete by the end of June, they will no longer need to carry two different tablets for different aircraft and activities.
• Pilots will continue to use iPads as their electronic flight bags which we’ll continue to enhance over time. Recently, we added a real-time weather app and a new turbulence awareness app to the devices.
• Flight attendants’ new cabin electronic flight bag and customer service tool will be an iPhone 12, and distribution will begin in the first quarter of 2022. The new devices will have a customized payment attachment that will allow multiple forms of payment, including touchless.

An American Airlines spokesperson said to View From the Wing that flight attendant devices will support 5G. Before American Airlines, Delta made the same move two months ago, announcing they were upgrading all flight attendant devices to 5G iPhone 12s.

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