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.
Korean Air budget subsidiary Jin Air will fly to Bangkok and Macao from October, going international 15 months after it began domestic operations. The airline proposes to expand to 16 international routes by 2011, serving Southeast Asia, China and Japan. Jin Air has three aircraft and has announced plans to lease two more, Boeing 737-800s, this year. It is expanding domestically, too. From Friday it will begin flying four times a day between Jeju and Busan, adding to its 12 daily roundtrip flights linking Jeju and Gimpo.
Creditors are applying for Chinese private carrier East Star Airlines to be declared bankrupt as Air China’s parent negotiates to buy the grounded business. East Star, which ceased flying on March 15, has losses totaling 500 million yuan (US$73 million). Chinese state carriers are getting financial support from the government, but the private ones are not.
EVA Airways has delayed a plan to raise capital with a sale of shares. It had planned to sell 500 million new shares by March 29, but now says it will do so at “an appropriate time.” The company’s stock price has fallen about 56% over the past year. At current values, the shares would raise T$4.2 billion ($124 million).