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.
IATA is downgrading its industry profit forecast for 2008 — a move the group has signaled since the beginning of the year — due to the continuing bleak economic outlook. IATA now projects the global industry will make a US$4.5 billion profit in 2008, its second forecast cut in the past seven months. Last September, IATA predicted a profit of US$7.8 billion, but the group downgraded this to US$5 billion in December. At the time of its last upgrade, IATA officials warned there was still significant downside risk.
The lead U.S. negotiator believes it is much too early to be talking about withdrawing airline rights if the second stage of the U.S./European Union open-skies talks breaks down — although he also warns that the U.S. has opportunities for counter-measures of its own if the EU follows this course of action.
British Airways said it is gradually bringing its domestic and short-haul flights at Terminal 5 to their full planned schedule in the wake of a horror start to its operation at the new terminal. Yesterday, BA said long-haul flights into T5 were operating as planned, but there were still some domestic and short-haul European cancellations. Yesterday, 340 of the planned 394 flights were planned to operate from T5, with 342 flights today and Wednesday. Flights at Terminals 1 and 4 are operating normally, BA said.
