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 U.S. Transportation Dept. last week awarded AirTran and Spirit the right to operate new daily flights from Washington National Airport. Spirit will use the new authority to fly a daily roundtrip to either Jacksonville or Milwaukee, and Spirit intends to fly to Fort Lauderdale. The services must begin by May 3. DOT said it selected AirTran and Spirit’s applications because they would offer the “greatest competitive benefits.” Not only are they low-cost carriers, they would also offer more seats than competing carriers, DOT said.
JetBlue is continuing its 2008 summer expansion by introducing a daily nonstop between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, beginning May 1. This will be JetBlue’s sixth destination from Salt Lake City.
Qantas is seeing “no significant dampening” in demand in most of its markets, particularly in the Australian domestic and outbound markets. Exceptions, however, are the U.K. and Japanese markets, where there has been “some softening.” The carrier expects to see profits increase 40% for its 2007/2008 fiscal year. For the first half of its fiscal year through Dec. 31, the airline saw a net profit of A$618 million (US$571.1 million).
