Spirit Airlines tops the latest ratings for on-time flights, a big turnaround for a discount carrier that consistently ranked as the tardiest airline in America three years ago. Spirit also has the second-lowest rate of canceled flights in the latest government report. It still has a high rate of passenger complaints, and some travelers avoid it and other budget airlines because of their reputation for poor service. If travellers come to see them as reliable, however, discount airlines could pose a greater threat to bigger competitors. The Transportation Department said Friday that 89% of Spirit's flights in October arrived on time, putting it just ahead of frequent winner Hawaiian Airlines and Delta. It's the first time the Miramar, Florida-based carrier has topped the rankings. It finished second in November 2017. Spirit had the worst on-time performance every month but one between May 2015 and May 2016. "We started looking at every part of the company," said Greg Christopher, the VP in charge of Spirit's operations control centre. "We got a little bit smarter about how we scheduled." Spirit operates many red-eye flights, and some planes were scheduled to run nearly around the clock for two or three days. If bad weather or a mechanical problem caused a single flight to be delayed, "it just cascaded through the next 15, 20 flights," Christopher said. The airline tries to limit using the same plane for red-eyes on consecutive nights, and has added room to its schedule in other ways. <br/>
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UK authorities are set to unveil plans to overhaul the country’s airspace through a modernisation programme intended to take advantage of air traffic management technology. Air navigation service NATS was requested last year to assess the technical feasibility of restructuring the airspace to improve efficiency, capacity and reduce noise. It states that the restructuring will make better use of performance-based navigation and free-route airspace. The UK government and the Civil Aviation Authority are publishing strategy papers outlining the need for airspace modernisation and the plan for achieving this aim. Last year more than 2.5m flight movements took place within the UK flight information region, an increase of nearly 4% on the previous year. NATS points out that the UK’s airspace has remained largely based on structures developed more than six decades ago, for previous generations of aircraft. CE Martin Rolfe says it does not permit the best use of modern air traffic management technology and current aircraft capabilities. He says the “huge” modernisation programme covers up to 15 airports in the busy south-east of the UK.<br/>
Vietnam's jet fuel demand will surge to a record this year as its tourism industry attracts a wave of new visitors and the country's airlines are rapidly expanding. The country is on track to have 38m international passengers and 16m visitors this year, according to data from CAPA Centre for Aviation. That is up from 18m passengers and 8m visitors in 2015, according to the data. "Aviation demand in Vietnam is booming... Fuel consumption in Vietnam will reach a record high this year and will keep rising for the years to come," said Tran Hoai Nam, vice president of Vietjet, Vietnam's biggest private airline. He added Vietnam's growth in foreign arrivals was the highest in Southeast Asia, rising 8.7% annually. The surge in traffic has translated into a rush of jet fuel demand in Vietnam. Through November, the country has imported 1.87m tonnes of the fuel, according to customs data, equal to 14.8m barrels, and up 18% from the same period last year. "For 2018, jet fuel demand in Vietnam is estimated to be increased by about 20 to 25 percent in comparison with 2017, mostly due to the increase in consumption of the international flights," said a Hanoi-based trader at one of country's jet fuel suppliers. Vietnam currently consumes about 18 million barrels of jet fuel per year, according to data from Petrolimex Aviation. Vietnam's jet fuel imports will continue to surge as the country only has two refineries, Dung Quat in the central province of Quảng Ngãi and Nghi Son in Thanh Hoa province, near to the capital Hanoi, which only started operations this year.<br/>
More men are taking jobs in the traditionally female-dominated profession of Japanese airline cabin crew as smaller airlines actively look to distinguish themselves from their large domestic rivals. The increasingly physical nature of the work in combination with the growing need to deal with unruly or drunk passengers, mean soradan (airmen) are being seen in the skies above Japan in larger numbers. Star Flyer currently has about 160 cabin crew, including eight men, and plans to hire six more male attendants by next summer. “The use of male cabin attendants is effective in impressing passengers that we offer a different service from big airlines,” said a Star Flyer spokesperson.<br/>