JEDDAH: Jet Airways, an Indian premier international airline, and JetLite, its subsidiary, claim to have registered the highest ever on time performance even as it garnered a 27 percent market share further consolidating on its leadership position in August as per the statistics released by India’s Director General of Civil of Aviation. Jet Airways and JetLite registered the highest ever on time performance with 94 percent and 94.1 percent respectively for the month, the regulatory body said. Meanwhile, Jet Airways, which operates daily flights between Saudi Arabia and Mumbai, has been voted the Third Best Airline Worldwide for Business Class and cited among the Top Ten airlines overall for cabin service by SmartTravelAsia.com readers. The online voting, conducted over a three-month period between May and July, was based on a combination of experience, an idea of the brand drawn from advertising and editorial in the media. Sudheer Raghavan, chief commercial officer, Jet Airways, said: “The awards reaffirm our resolve to enhance the Jet Airways experience for all our guests.” Jet Airways was previously honored by Smart Travel Asia in 2005, 2008 and 2009.
 

JEDDAH: British Airways (BA), together with Airbus, is backing Cranfield University’s pioneering project to harvest algae in order to produce jet fuel in commercial quantities. The Sustainable Use of Renewable Fuels (SURF) consortium, which includes the UK’s flagship carrier, Airbus and the University, was announced at the recent Aviation and Environment Summit in Geneva. SURF is based around Cranfield’s ‘Sea Green’ project and will serve as an advisory group supporting the definition, objectives and outcomes of this project. The university already has a pilot facility on campus, which is growing and processing algae for bio-fuels but the eventual aim is for Sea Green to be an ocean-based facility for the sustainable production of commercial quantities of biomass for biofuels. The first commercial quantities of products from Sea Green will become available within three years. “Sustainable fuels will play a critical role in reducing the carbon footprint of global aviation by 50 percent by 2050, delivering substantially lower life-cycle emissions while avoiding other environmental impacts,” Jonathon Counsell, head of environment at BA, said.
 

RIYADH: E-boarding passes are a new service and qualitative step change in the services provided by nasair to passengers traveling domestically and internationally from Riyadh and Jeddah. This service enables travelers without luggage to get their boarding pass and select seats by themselves through the nasair website, flynas.com. The traveler then must reach the check-in counter 45 minutes before the departure time otherwise the booking stands cancelled. Abdullah Al-Ghanim, head of IT at National Air Services (NAS), the mother company of nasair, said: “Passengers can issue their boarding passes in a period ranging from 6-24 hours before departure. The service is activated via flynas.com.” Moreover, Al-Ghanim added, the new service comes as a result of upgrading the carrier’s automated system ‘Navitaire’, that was completed, installed and run successfully in May. “The system provides the infrastructure necessary to improve and add new services for our customers to exceed their expectations and needs in application of the concept of ‘Smart Services’, which is one of nasair four values: “Youngest fleet, on time, competitive fares and smart services.”
 

JEDDAH: The global aviation industry is set to invest $1.3 trillion on 12,000 new aircraft in the next decade, according to International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) estimates. The IATA head has called on the world’s governments to unite in support of aviation’s ambitious targets to combat climate change and agree to a global approach at the upcoming International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Triennial Assembly in Montreal. “The past 18 months have been the worst financial times in modern aviation history. But even in these harsh times, airlines’ budgets earmarked for environment projects were not cut. The numbers tell the story. In the next 10 years, the industry will spend $1.3 trillion for 12,000 new aircraft. Each of these will be 20-25 percent more fuel efficient than their predecessors,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO at the Aviation and Environment Summit being held in Geneva by the Air Transport Action Group. The global aviation industry is united behind three targets to address climate change - a 1.5 percent average annual improvement in fuel efficiency through 2020.