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.
Japan Airlines is throwing itself into the arms of a government restructuring agency after a group of experts recommended that the carrier could be saved if it were reorganized and given a significant capital injection. Transport Minister Seiji Maehara is not disclosing the details of a report that he has received from the group of experts, but he does say that it shows Japan Airlines, which operates 60% of all Japanese flights, can be saved if it reduces capacity and costs.
The powerful recovery in demand for Chinese air transport over the past year has fueled significantly improved financial results for the country’s three biggest airlines. The largest of these, China Southern, made a net profit of 284 million yuan (US$42 million) for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with a loss of CNY830 million a year earlier, when the industry was at or near the trough of a severe downturn.
The Thai branch of the AirAsia budget airline group says it will probably start a service between Bangkok and Mumbai in December. The move is part of a shift in emphasis for Thai AirAsia, which increasingly needs to look beyond the already well-served domestic market. International services will grow to 70% of the airline’s business from 50% now, CEO Tassapon Bijleveld told the Bangkok Post. Thai AirAsia expects to report a profit for 2009, with a load factor of 82-85% for the fourth quarter.
