This week was supposed to be the time when many workers began returning to offices, and business travelers started returning to the air. Neither of those things is happening the way US airlines had counted on. With the rise of Covid-19 cases in recent months, many offices have pushed back reopening plans until later this fall or even into 2022. And without reopened offices to visit, many business travel plans have also been put on hold. "Delaying back-to-office has an effect on business travel," said Philip Baggaley, chief credit analyst of transportation companies for Standard & Poor's. "It's harder to put together a trip where you see a bunch of different clients. And company travel policy can become more cautious." In July, a survey of members by the Global Business Travel Association found 68% said they planned to begin business travel sometime in next three months. By August, that had dropped 35%. "It's a pretty dramatic change of plans," said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics. "We expected to see some traction from business travel in the fall. Now we're not certain when it will happen." Story has more.<br/>
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Major US airlines plan to announce on Thursday that they will back a voluntary industry target of 3 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel in 2030 as the White House looks to reduce aviation sector emissions, sources told Reuters. Airlines for America in March had set a 2030 goal of producing and deploying 2b gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SAF, made from feedstocks such as used cooking oil and animal fat, at present accounts for only a miniscule amount of overall jet fuel use. The group declined to comment Wednesday. A White House virtual event on sustainable aviation is set for Thursday, industry and government officials said. The target for sustainable aviation fuel will be detailed at that event, sources briefed on the matter said. The airline group will pledge to work with the US government and others to help rapidly expand production and deployment of “commercially viable” SAF, sources said.<br/>
The FAA has ordered airlines to replace disks in some Pratt & Whitney PW1100G turbofans, saying the powerplants could have the same problem that caused the 2020 uncontained failure of an International Aero Engines (IAE) V2500. The components of concern are high-pressure turbine (HPT) first- and second-stage disks. P&W is among several companies that produce IAE engine components as part of a consortium.“The FAA considers removal of certain HPT first-stage and HPT second-stage disks to be an urgent safety issue,” the agency says in an 8 September airworthiness directive (AD). “These HPT disks have the highest risk of failure and require removal within 30 days… This unsafe condition may result in loss of the airplane.” The FAA took action after learning that some PW1100G HPT disks are made from a material “similar” to that used to produce disks in a V2500 that failed on 18 March 2020. That V2500 “experienced an uncontained HPT first-stage disk failure that resulted in high-energy debris penetrating the engine cowling”, FAA documents say. “Pratt & Whitney determined that the failure… was due to an undetected subsurface material defect in an HPT disk.” Following that incident, P&W reviewed “all other IAE and P&W engines that contain parts of similar material”, the FAA says. The analysis showed that some PW1100Gs “are also affected by the unsafe condition”.<br/>