Adrian is Auckland bureau chief for Aviation Week, based in New Zealand. He covers commercial aviation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Adrian was previously based in Aviation Week’s Washington office for nine years, writing for a range of the group’s publications and covering many aspects of the commercial aviation industry. He has won Australasian and international awards for his aviation writing.
Prior to joining Aviation Week in 2002, Adrian covered aviation industry and policy issues for two other publishing companies in Washington. He has also worked for newspapers in Texas and New Zealand, covering a wide range of topics. Adrian graduated from Auckland University with a degree in history and English in 1992.
Emirates is still waiting to hear whether it will be allowed to fly Airbus A380s into major Indian airports, but it does not think there will be a long-term holdup. Both Emirates and Lufthansa have said they want to operate A380 routes to India, but so far the government has not approved the use of the aircraft at Indian airports. Local media are reporting that this is partly to protect Air India, which is due to receive its first A380 this year.
Qantas will this week begin the fleetwide phase-in of a new MRO system that CEO Alan Joyce says will dramatically improve the carrier’s engineering process. The introduction of the new airworthiness control system is known as Project Marlin. The project “costs more than we wanted and took longer than we liked,” Joyce acknowledged during a speech at the Australia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit in Sydney. “But this is the largest and most complex IT project Qantas Engineering has ever implemented, and we were always going to make sure we got it right.”
Qantas pilots have joined engineers in token labor actions against the airline, and while the immediate effects are minor, it does signal the possibility of more significant disruptions in the near future. The pilots union has told the carrier it will conduct protected labor action, although at this stage it will be primarily aimed at informing the public of their positions. The actions will include “unauthorized inflight announcements” during long-haul flights, which the union stresses will be brief and “positive.”
