Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
SkyTeam, accepting Taiwan’s China Airlines as its 15th member, is focused on improving integration of ground services, rather than a rapid expansion of the alliance. The group still affirms, however, that new members from Brazil and India would be most valuable to the alliance. “I will be extremely selective” in negotiating with potential new members, says SkyTeam Managing Director Michael Wisbrun. “I would prefer to consolidate on the network side,” while putting more effort into raising service levels.
BEIJING — Australia is moving to buy a sixth Boeing C-17 Globemaster, barely six months after deciding to order a fifth, which has just arrived. The country’s request for information on cost and availability for another C-17 follows the discovery that its first four aircraft, ordered in 2006, have been more useful than expected. The Royal Australian Air Force could exploit scale economies in operating a larger fleet of the type, says Defense Minister Stephen Smith.
BEIJING — Boeing is trumpeting industrial opportunities in its bid for Japan’s F-X combat aircraft requirement, a day before the country stops making fighters for the first time in 56 years. Coincidentally or not, proposals for the F-X program were due on Sept. 26, while the last two of 94 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries F-2 strike fighters are scheduled to be completed on Sept. 27.
