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.
While FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt says airlines must do more to reduce overscheduling, he is willing to see if informal talks with carriers can produce sufficient improvement before contemplating more serious actions.
The FAA is developing criteria to determine which U.S. metro areas should be the top priorities for NextGen deployment, RTCA President Margaret Jenny says at the AVIATION WEEK NextGen Ahead conference. One of the key findings of a 2009 RTCA report is that NextGen technologies should be rolled out in an integrated manner at airports in specific metro areas. The new criteria will show where the most delay reduction can be achieved, Jenny says.
Singapore Airlines continues to reap the benefit of capacity reductions, reporting a strong year-on-year load factor improvement for April. SIA traffic was up 2.9% for the month on a capacity decrease of 4.2%, which resulted in load factor rising 5.4 points to 77.6%. The capacity cuts were due to reductions already in place, as well volcano-related cancellations. The largest load factor growth — 13% — was on routes to the Americas, while routes to and from the Southwest Pacific were the weakest.
