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.
Australia’s Virgin Blue Group is signaling its determination to fend off competitors Qantas and Tiger by adding 25 options and 30 purchase rights to an order for 50 Boeing 737s. The company also made good its plan, stated last year, to buy aircraft amid the downturn and thereby secure favorable pricing. It ordered aircraft in the previous downturn, in 2001, and says “net pricing” in the latest deal is better now.
BEIJING—GAMECO plans a major expansion of its business, spreading out from its Guangzhou base in southern China to provide line and heavy maintenance elsewhere in the country. The company is meanwhile achieving notable improvements in efficiency with a reorganization of work practices and plant layout.
GAMECO is preparing to maintain China Southern’s Airbus A380s. That work comes to it almost by right, since the airline is a major shareholder, but it may be hard for the company to attract more A380 business given the small numbers of the type in service and on order. Singapore Airlines, another A380 operator, is a competitor. GAMECO has not yet begun marketing for A380 work but it will soon, says Norman. One concern must be getting adequate service from the costly A380 hangar that the company has built in anticipation of receiving China Southern’s A380s.
