Adrian is Auckland bureau chief for Aviation Week, based in New Zealand. He covers commercial aviation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Adrian was previously based in Aviation Week’s Washington office for nine years, writing for a range of the group’s publications and covering many aspects of the commercial aviation industry. He has won Australasian and international awards for his aviation writing.
Prior to joining Aviation Week in 2002, Adrian covered aviation industry and policy issues for two other publishing companies in Washington. He has also worked for newspapers in Texas and New Zealand, covering a wide range of topics. Adrian graduated from Auckland University with a degree in history and English in 1992.
The short history of the FAA’s NextGen modernization effort is littered with reports and road maps, but a new review by an independent task force could cause the program’s largest shake-up yet. Industry and FAA officials believe the latest recommendations will lead to a shift in NextGen priorities, redirecting attention to the problems that most concern airspace users. This should go a long way to overcoming airline skepticism that the modernization effort will pay off for them—although carriers may still need convincing that the FAA will follow through.
FAA attempted its longest operational test of a new en route ATC system over the weekend, but a glitch forced it to switch back to the legacy system. Controllers at the Salt Lake City center switched over to the en route automation modernization (ERAM) system at about 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 2, and nine hours later an error was detected in the information tag attached to a single Continental flight. Controllers then transitioned back to the host system, according to an FAA spokesman. This resulted in 23 flight delays.
FAA yesterday hailed the success of an industry/government drive to reduce runway incursions, which helped cut serious incursions to record lows. For the 2009 fiscal year ending Sept. 30, there were 12 incursions classified as category A or B. This compares to 67 in 2000, and 25 in fiscal 2008. Moreover, only two of the 2009 incursions involved commercial aircraft, versus nine the previous year and 34 in 2000.
