Between increased use of LED technology in the auto lighting industry and the recent surge of LED holiday lights adorning houses, LED lights are dominating the streets. Now, they will take to the air. Volaris Airlines has recently announced they will upgrade their wingtip lighting with LED technology.

The Led wingtip navigation is supposed to last 40 times longer than the current halogen bulbs Volaris uses. This will hopefully give the airline safer travel and save them maintenance costs.

"This upgrade saves operators in downtime and maintenance, since the lifespan increases from 500 hours to 20,000 hours with LED," said Jeff Johnston, vice president of platform components for Volaris.

The LED replacements will neither require any aircraft modification nor add weight to the planes. Volaris will begin retrofit wingtip lighting on 20 Airbus A320 aircraft this December and the conversion should be completed in early 2010. Come the New Year, LED lighting will be standard on new production Airbus A320 aircraft.

LEDs already have wide commercial appeal in the consumer electronic applications and the auto industry. According to JustAuto.com, LED technology is helping the headlamp market steadily grow as consumers are paying more attention to the types of bulbs front-light suppliers offer. It remains to be seen whether the energy saving bulbs will dominate the skies.