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.
Chinese airlines operate 47 flights a day between Beijing and Shanghai, half with widebody aircraft, mainly Airbus A330s. There can be little question of putting more narrowbodies on the route; its congestion and delays are already notorious. So the future must bring increased twin-aisle capacity.
Arguing that civil aviation promotes economic growth, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is defending its policy of building airports before air traffic demand justifies them. As a developing country, China must maintain its policy of building civil aviation infrastructure in advance of requirements, CAAC Director-General Li Jiaxiang says in state media reports.
The internal target for certification of Comac’s 90-seat ARJ21 regional jet has been delayed again, to 2014 from the previously scheduled mid-2013, says a program official. Development therefore is now likely to last 12 years, with six years of flight testing. A key reason for the latest delay is slow progress in flight testing. Engineers also are attending to avionics bugs and modifying the landing gear, one of many issues arising from changes elsewhere in the design.
