As you queue anxiously on the jet bridge, you pull out your tablet to see how much battery you've got left. Then you check your kids' tablets—this is a long flight, and those game- and movie-filled screens will be a welcome, necessary distraction at 35,000 feet. And if you look carefully as you step onto the plane, you might catch your pilots doing the same thing.

Don't freak—even with autopilot's help, human aviators aren't allowed to kick back for a Lord of the Rings marathon or accept your Words With Friends challenge. Just like you need your tablet to get you through the flight with your sanity intact, the pilots need their tablets to get you wherever you're going.

iPads and other tablets first entered the cockpit about a decade ago, replacing the reams of printouts and books that pilots had to carry in their flight bags, an easy way to save about 100 pounds of weight in an industry where fuel efficiency is incredibly important. But an off-the-shelf tablet is powerful enough to augment a plane's built-in computer, and airlines keep finding new ways to use that handy power. Pilots can swipe and tap to stay up to date on safety notices, meet the rest of their crew, order fuel, and plot the fastest, most efficient routes.

Essential Information

Pilots launch a British Airways portal, to give them quick and easy access to the apps they need before take-off and during flight. British Airways

At British Airways, which started equipping its pilots with iPads five years ago, the tablets are a tool for streamlining the many tasks that compete for attention before takeoff. Passengers and baggage need loading, fuel needs pumping, flight plans need agreeing. When a pilot unlocks his iPad, it looks much like yours, albeit with a big, dark, British Airways logo as the background. But then the pilot opens a portal and gets a simplified view of the apps they'll need, as large blue buttons in neatly arranged rows. There's Go Fly, for inflight information; Yammer, for chatting with other people in the company; ESP-PIL, for letting the pilot pull up information on every passenger aboard, to see what status they are, and whether they’ve been delayed recently. If another holdup is imminent, the pilot can walk back through the plane and give that high-value, potentially aggrieved traveler some special attention.

If they didn't have time to meet everybody in person before the flight, pilots can pull up a photo for each crew member. An Airbus A380 carries 22 crew members, so these profiles help with security and teamwork. “When you’re opening the flight deck door, you've got a good idea who you’re operating with, for example,” says BA pilot Spencer Norton.