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.
The Pacific Blue unit of Australia's Virgin Blue started New Zealand domestic services last week, flying a triangular route between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The initial Pacific Blue domestic schedule comprises a total of 10 daily roundtrips among those cities. Its competitors in this market are Air New Zealand and Qantas.
A Qantas order for 99 Airbus and Boeing narrow-body airliners signals that the Australian carrier’s expansion will rely heavily on profitable budget unit Jetstar and its Asian franchisees. The scale looks huge, since the venerable 87-year-old airline is ordering aircraft as if it has the growth plans of a baby-faced startup. “They now have more planes on order than they are flying,” JP Morgan analyst Matt Crowe says.
Qantas has ordered 68 Airbus A320s and A321s and 31 Boeing 737-800s, signaling that its future growth will rely heavily on budget unit Jetstar and its Asian franchisees. The airline group, Australia's largest, has secured early delivery positions, despite the extremely tight market. The first aircraft from the two orders, an A321, will be delivered in February, with the others arriving in the following six years. Options and purchase rights on 40 A320s and A321s and 49 737-800s cover delivery slots as far out as 2017.
