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.
United saw its February load factor increase slightly to a new record for the month, with system capacity falling faster than traffic. Overall load factor was up 0.6 percentage points to 77.5%, as North American loads climbed 0.7 points to 78.9%. Latin America saw the largest increase of 4.8 points to 80.5%, and Pacific routes had the only decrease, down 0.1 points to 77.7%. Transatlantic loads rose 0.9 points to 70.1%.
Alaska Airlines saw a drop in February load factor, as a capacity increase was met by a slight traffic decline. Capacity rose 3.4%, compared with a 0.8% drop in traffic, resulting in load factor decreasing by 2.9 points to 73.6%. Load factor was down 2.7 points to 68.5% for the first two months of the year. Horizon Air's February traffic increased 3.5% on a 7.6% capacity gain, with load factor dropping 2.7 points to 68.8%. -AS
FAA is expected to notify more than 3,654 former controllers that they will be eligible to participate in a class action lawsuit against the agency. The controllers are among those fired by President Reagan after the 1981 controller strike and are represented by the Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year authorized the suit to proceed as a class action.
