More Americans are expected to fly or drive far from home over Christmas than did last year, putting a cap on a busy year for travel. Auto club AAA forecast Monday that 115.2m people will go 50 miles or more from home during the 10 days between Dec. 23 and New Year’s Day. That’s 2.2% more than AAA predicted during the comparable stretch last year. “That desire to get away is stronger than we have seen in a very long time,” said AAA spokeswoman Aixa Diaz. “People are willing to adjust their budgets in other areas of their life, but they want to keep traveling.” The AAA predicts that the holiday season will still fall 3% short of record travel in 2019, the last Christmas before COVID-19 hit the United States. Air travel in the U.S. has already rebounded, surpassing 2019 levels. The number of travelers going through U.S. airport checkpoints is up 12.4% over last year and 1.4% higher than in 2019, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Travel around the Thanksgiving Day holiday topped 2019 numbers, peaking at 2.9m — a single-day record for TSA — screened on Sunday, Nov. 26. Airlines are predicting a blockbuster holiday season.<br/>
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The Biden administration expects the Treasury to release guidance by the end of this week on whether to make it easier for sustainable aviation fuel made from corn-based ethanol to qualify for subsidies, multiple sources familiar with the administration's thinking told Reuters. For months the administration has been divided over this issue, as it faces a strong lobbying push from stakeholders in the US Farm Belt, a key political constituency ahead of next year's presidential election. Corn-based ethanol producers see sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as one of the only routes to grow their industry amid rising sales of electric vehicles. They also argue that the US needs to use ready technology to quickly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, environmental groups say clearing land to grow crops for fuel is counterproductive to curbing global warming. It is unclear what the administration's guidance will say. The White House and Treasury Department declined to comment for this story. Reuters reported in September that the Biden administration would likely delay a decision until December. The guidance was expected in September. In late November, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters he was confident ethanol will become an SAF feedstock, when asked. "They (U.S. Treasury) will provide some direction and guidance, and I think the actual rules and regulations and so forth may take a little bit longer," he said.<br/>
The Federal Aviation Administration plans to place new maintenance requirements on airlines after learning that more components in Pratt & Whitney PW1100G engines may be affected by a powder-metal manufacturing problem. The FAA laid out new proposed requirements in a regulatory filing released on 11 December, saying some PW1100G rotors, hubs and air seals will need “accelerated replacement” due to the manufacturing issue. The proposal would affect 430 US-registered PW1100Gs, which power Airbus A320neo-family jets. P&W earlier this year said it needed to recall some 1,200 PW1100Gs for inspection or replacement of high-pressure turbine and compressor disks, citing a problem involving powder-metal manufacturing. As a result, it said, hundreds of A320neo-family jets will need to be grounded at any given time in the coming year for inspections and parts replacements. P&W said several weeks ago that it expected the FAA would soon issue airworthiness directives related to the new maintenance requirements. It is unclear if the FAA’s proposed rule reflects any impact beyond that already disclosed by P&W. The engine maker did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “There is an increased risk of failure for additional powder-metal parts in certain powder-metal production campaigns,” the FAA’s 11 December proposed rule says. “All affected parts are susceptible to failure significantly earlier than previously determined.” The FAA has issued several recent PW1100G airworthiness directives addressing the powder-metal problem, which came to light after an International Aero Engines (IAE) V2500 turbofan suffered a high-pressure turbine disk failure in 2020. P&W co-owns IAE and makes V2500 and PW1100G blades using the same process.<br/>
Airline lobby group IATA has urged the Brazilian government and state-run oil company Petrobras to tweak the way jet fuel is charged in the country in order to reduce costs, calling kerosene prices in the South American nation "excessively high." The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in a statement on Monday that local prices "do not reflect the reality of an oil producing country," adding that fuel costs were one of the main challenges faced by the sector in Brazil. Petrobras is Brazil's largest oil producer and responsible for most of the country's refining activity. It tweaks jet fuel prices at the beginning of each month based on factors such as global oil prices and foreign exchange rates. "Petrobras' monopolistic position and additional administrative costs charged by suppliers result in artificially inflated jet fuel prices," IATA's head in the Americas, Peter Cerda, said. Brazil's mines and energy ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Petrobras, meanwhile, pointed to the fact it had lowered kerosene prices at its refineries by an average 6% starting Dec. 1, which means prices have been reduced by a total 19.6% so far this year. "It is important to highlight that the Brazilian market is open to free competition and there are no legal, regulatory or logistical restrictions for other companies to act as producers or importers of jet fuel," the oil giant added in a statement.<br/>
Austria, which has led opposition within the European Union to Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen open-travel area, said on Monday it was willing to relent but only on plane travel and in exchange for tighter security at the EU's external border. At a meeting of the bloc's interior ministers a year ago at which the two eastern European countries had hoped to get the green light to join the world's largest free-travel area, Austria said illegal immigration was still too high and Romania and Bulgaria needed to do more to prevent it before joining. Austria's ruling conservative People's Party (OVP) has for years made fighting illegal immigration a key campaign issue. A parliamentary election is due next year and the far-right Freedom Party, which has a similar line on migration to the OVP, has a clear lead in opinion polls. "Yes, I can imagine changes as far as airports are concerned for Romania and Bulgaria," Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told ORF radio, adding that he had sent a position paper to the European Commission and the ball was now in its court. "On the other hand, there are clear demands in exchange for that, namely massively strengthening the protection of the (EU) external border, land border checks staying in place, and asylum seekers being transferred to Bulgaria and Romania," he said, referring to people who pass through there to reach Austria. Specifically, Karner said he wanted a trebling of the number of border police and upgrades to the technical equipment deployed, particularly at Bulgaria's border with Turkey and Romania's border with Serbia.<br/>
Volga-Dnepr Airlines has lodged a lawsuit against the government of Canada over sanctions that were imposed on the company, in a case that could determine the fate of one of its An-124-100 freighters, the Wall Street Journal reported. RA-82078 (msn 9773054559153) was detained on February 28, 2022, at Toronto Pearson Airport as Western countries began to impose sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine four days previously. Now, with the Antonov Design Bureau quadjet facing a second Canadian winter stuck in Toronto, the Russian cargo carrier asked a federal court in November to declare that Canada’s sanctions against it are invalid. It argues that the 29-year-old freighter is suffering damage. The aircraft has also been racking up airport parking fees. The airline claimed to the court that it was included in the sanctions list by mistake, as it has not been participating in Russia’s invasion. It had sent a formal notice to the Canadian government in August 2023 demanding the return of the An-124, threatening international arbitration if the matter was not resolved within months. The An-124 is one of nine aircraft of the type that the airline has, all of which are currently inactive, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows. Volga-Dnepr Airlines also operates one (active) An-124-100-150 and five Il-76TD-90VDs, four of which are active.<br/>
China's State Power Investment Corp announced a 42b yuan ($5.85b) investment plan in northeast China to produce fuel from hydrogen produced from wind power, according to a company official and a local government report. The projects, that include a 3.5 gigawatt wind power plant, a 164,000 metric ton per year hydrogen-making facility and 400,000 tpy each of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and methanol, will be built in Qiqihaer city of Heilongjiang province, according to a report carried on the city's official WeChat platform. SPIC will first build a 10,000-tpy pilot plant making SAF from wind power based hydrogen applying technology from Tsing Energy Development Co, the report said, billing the project the first of its kind in China. The report did not give a timeline building these plants, but a senior Chinese industry executive familiar with the investment told Reuters the SAF plant is slated for first fuel in late 2025. The official, who declined to be named as these details are not public, said the technology involves blending hydrogen with carbon dioxide derived from corn-based ethanol. Once the pilot project becomes successful it will be expanded to 400,000 tons annually by around 2030, the official added. A SPIC representative confirmed the city government's report, but declined to comment on the timelines of project building.<br/>
Boeing named Stephanie Pope as COO, elevating a company veteran into the highest management sphere and turning her into a possible contender for the top job to succeed Dave Calhoun at the US aircraft manufacturer. Pope, who has worked at Boeing for almost three decades, previously oversaw the company’s Global Services division, a post she assumed early last year. Prior to that, she was CFO for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. As head of operations, a new position that Boeing is creating, Pope will oversee the performance of the three business units with responsibility for driving supply chain, quality, manufacturing and engineering excellence, the company said in a statement. Management movements are closely watched at the biggest US exporter as Calhoun, who took over as CEO in 2019, approaches his retirement age. Boeing has emerged from several tumultuous years, following the grounding of its mainstay 737 MAX model, and then the pandemic that disabled air traffic around the world and disrupted supply lines. Pope would be the first woman to run Boeing, which also has a major defense subsidiary. The business she oversees, which provides services ranging from analytical tools for airlines to remodeling older passenger jets into air-cargo-haulers, was the only of the three main subsidiaries to report a profit in the third quarter, while the Defense & Space business and the Commercial Airplanes division had losses.<br/>
Boeing has embarked on deeper-than-expected cuts in its strategy ranks, halving the number of planners working within key divisions as it refocuses energies on tackling industrial pressures, people familiar with the matter said. The move is the latest evidence of renewed industrial priorities after Boeing on Monday named Stephanie Pope to the new role of COO, putting the 51-year-old Global Services head in line to succeed Dave Calhoun as CEO. Boeing has been grappling with supply disruption at a time when it is saddled with almost $40b of debt stemming from the COVID-19 travel slump and an earlier 737 MAX safety crisis. But some critics worry the increased operational focus is diverting attention from Boeing's long-term future at a crucial stage for the industry, with redundancy notices due to go out to affected strategists this week, according to the sources. In November, Boeing said Marc Allen, who had once been seen as a future CEO, would step down as chief strategy officer with part of his planning team redeployed to divisions. In a Nov. 16 memo, Calhoun said this involved "enabling and empowering our business units," with strategists "directly joining the business units they support." However, sources said those units were facing cuts of at least 50% in the number of strategists who work day to day inside Boeing Global Services and Stan Deal's Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The total number of employees affected was unknown.<br/>