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.
Indonesian low-cost carrier Mandala Airlines has opened its first two international routes, flying daily from Jakarta to Singapore and three times a week from Balikpapan on Borneo to Singapore. The airline, Indonesia's fifth-largest by seat capacity, will also start flights to Hong Kong on July 19 and Macau on July 21.
Chinese commercial aircraft builder Comac aims to complete selection of suppliers for its C919 narrow-body airliner this week, about five months behind schedule. The country’s three biggest airlines will order up to 100 C919s this year, probably at the Zhuhai air show in November, acting as initial customers under state direction. They will not be launch customers, because the project was launched long ago, in May 2008. Indeed, serious marketing of the aircraft to Chinese customers has begun only in the past few weeks.
Lessor BOC Aviation has strengthened its presence in China by placing two Airbus A320-200s with the country’s largest budget carrier, Spring Airlines. Reflecting the rapid recovery in the Asian market, the Singapore-based lessor, owned by the Bank of China, had to bring forward two delivery positions to get the deal, since the aircraft it had previously been due to receive this year had already been placed.
