Apple just this year replaced all of the paper signage across its Apple Stores with iPads and now it seems another major company has decided to take a portion of its business the paperless route.

United Airlines this week announced that it will adopt a paperless flight deck and distribute 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots as part of a new electronic flight bag scheme. United said in a statement that the electronic flight bags (EFB) will replace paper flight manuals, and, a first for major network carriers, provide pilots with paperless aeronautical navigational charts through a special iPad app, Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck.

“The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying,” said Captain Fred Abbott, United’s senior vice president of flight operations. “The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight.”

A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. United says that each 1.5 iPad will replace 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot’s flight bag.

“The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold—it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption,” United said in a statement. “The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhousegas emissions by 3,208 metric tons.”

Distribution of the iPads began earlier this month, with all pilots expected to have them by the end of 2011.