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.
BEIJING – Controllers have adjusted the orbit of China’s Chang’e 1 lunar probe to minimize the time it will spend in darkness during a solar eclipse on Feb. 21. By raising the 200-kilometer (120-mile) orbit by 2 kilometers on Jan. 27, the Beijing Aerospace Control Center reduced the spacecraft’s expected period without sunlight to two hours from three or four.
China Eastern Airlines, in its latest attempt to avoid falling under the control of Air China, is trying to call a second shareholder meeting to consider a proposed tie-up with Singapore Airlines and that Southeast Asian company’s major shareholder, Temasek Holdings. The first meeting, on Jan. 8, rejected the Singaporean offer, whose value had been overtaken by the market price of the shares and a higher bid from Air China’s parent, China National Aviation Corp.
AirAsiaX, a new long-haul budget offshoot of Malaysian no-frills carrier AirAsia Bhd., is assessing Melbourne and Newcastle as its next Australian destinations, following its start of Airbus A330-300 flights between Gold Coast and Kuala Lumpur in November. Traffic is almost evenly split on the Gold Coast route, with 48% of passengers from Australia and 52% from Southeast Asia. December and January loads averaged 80%, says AirAsiaX. The airline plans to introduce one Australian destination a year over five years, including Gold Coast.
