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.
Nav Canada has introduced an upgrade to its oceanic air traffic control system that handles flights on the busiest transatlantic corridors. The enhanced system is known as the Gander Automated Air Traffic System Plus (GAATS+), which is an improvement on the existing GAATS. The oceanic system is based in Gander, Newfoundland.
Virgin Australia is forming an alliance with Singapore Airlines, the final pillar in the Australian carrier’s strategy of securing partners covering major international markets. The agreement was revealed June 7 at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting in Singapore. It includes interlining from Aug. 1 and will be broadened to cover code-sharing and commercial cooperation pending regulatory approvals. Executives from the two carriers expect these approvals to be granted by the beginning of 2012.
Japan Airlines says the demand slump following the March earthquake and tsunami has plateaued and traffic is beginning to recover, and the airline is confident it can reinstate capacity as planned and achieve profit goals. All indicators point to business traffic returning, although the decline was less than in the leisure sector, JAL CEO Masaru Onishi says at the International Air Transport Association annual meeting in Singapore. The carrier says leisure traffic is much stronger outbound than inbound.
