Background
Northwest Airlines, the world’s fourth-largest airline and the nation’s leading trans-Pacific carrier, prides itself with being on the cutting-edge of airline technology. As part of its dedication to innovation, Northwest Airlines committed to simplifying a complex task—publishing and distributing flight operations manuals used by up to 6,000 pilots and 100 instructor pilots and at 200-300 ground-based access points.

Challenge
With each manual containing between 800 and 1300 pages—including large, complex graphics illustrating aircraft systems and controls—Northwest needed an efficient way to electronically distribute flight manuals to pilots and other users. Reliability and speed were crucial. In addition to fast access, pilots, of course, depended on highly accurate data. Graphics needed to download with critical details intact. Equally important, file sizes needed to be small enough to ensure fast downloads, over any kind of network in any location. And once files were opened, pilots and instructors needed an efficient way to zoom to the precise information needed, without wasting time scrolling through hundreds of pages.

Only one software solution offered the speed and flexibility to meet all of these challenges— Document Express with DjVu. Document Express makes all types of content network-ready, for easy distribution and access.
Northwest Airlines selected Document Express to accelerate the entire cycle of creating, transmitting, downloading, and accessing mission-critical information.

Results
Northwest Airlines is highly satisfied with Document Express and the role DjVu is playing in streamlining the entire publication process, while vastly improving airline pilots’ abilities to access information.