G'day airmail.
I want to drive our airline to introduce laptops for flight crew, as you said to help them in planning. The crew would be able to use them for personal use as well.
I know there are schemes out there for bulk-purchasing, AND other airlines have gone the route of paying fully for the laptops.
My (uphill) task is trying to show the cost benefit of having the company purchase laptops for all the flight crew, and do away with the paper-libraries totally. This means justifying losing the cost of swapping manuals all the darn time...maintaining that department...subscriptions...etc etc vs the paperless-concept for flight-planning (flight-plans, take-off / landing calculations / charts / aircraft manuals / SOP's / various notifications and memos given to the crew / NOTAM's...all of this is also part of the "do you get a laptop?" quest I am after here.
Cleared up a little more?
Oh - to answer your last, this is for a major, but non-uk-based, airline. One that requires SAND-PROOF laptops.
Cheers,
Ray Darr