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.
Mexican transportation officials are vowing to hire more aviation inspectors to reverse the U.S. FAA’s recent decision to downgrade Mexico’s aviation safety rating. The FAA on July 30 dropped Mexico from category one to category two, restricting code-sharing operations between U.S. and Mexican carriers. This mainly affects American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which partner with Mexicana and Aeromexico, respectively.
Once again, Congress has come up short on the FAA reauthorization bill. Despite a late flurry of activity, the failure to reach agreement on a handful of troublesome issues prevented the passage of legislation desperately needed by many sectors of the aviation industry.
American Airlines saw its load factor drop fractionally in July, with capacity gains rising ahead of traffic. Mainline load factor dropped 0.3 points to 87%. Traffic was up 2.7% on a 3.1% capacity hike. Domestic mainline traffic declined 0.4% compared with a 0.8% capacity increase, and international traffic rose 7.8% on a capacity rise of 6.5%. Transatlantic routes saw the biggest load factor increase of 4.2 points, as traffic grew 5% on flat capacity.
