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.
Orlando Airport is expected to be the first to get runway status lights (RSLs) under Sensis Corp.’s contract with FAA, say Sensis officials. A few U.S. airports already have already trialed prototype RSLs, but Orlando will be the first of the 22 in the main deployment. Sensis is meeting with FAA officials to determine the remainder of the schedule. All 22 are to be completed by 2011. RSLs are seen as a crucial tool to help prevent runway incursions.
Continental saw a strong unit revenue increase in October, but the airline sees growth slowing dramatically in November. The carrier says mainline domestic unit revenue was up 10% to 11%, but the year-on-year increase is likely to be just 4%-6% in November. This is because “close in yields are expected to come in lower than earlier anticipated as a result of the weakened economy,” Continental said. The November estimate is down significantly from earlier guidance of an increase of more than 10%.
Nav Canada and Sensis Corp. are installing a new airport surveillance system at Montreal that will likely be deployed at other major Canadian airports, and will form part of a larger system that could be marketed internationally. The Montreal system is based on Sensis’ multistatic dependent surveillance (MDS) technology, and incorporates a ground vehicle-tracking system called VeeLo. Nav Canada CEO John Crichton says discussions are under way with three other major Canadian airports to bring the system there also.
