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.
Alaska Air Group managed to improve to a net profit of $85.8 million in the third quarter, but the carrier expects to see a loss for the fourth quarter. The third-quarter result was a big improvement from last year, when Alaska posted a net loss of $17.4 million. The gain was much smaller, excluding some hefty one-time costs last year, however. Without special items, the profit was $82.8 million this year and $77.9 million in 2006.
FAA says the 75 largest U.S. airports responded well to its call to accelerate the introduction of improved taxiway markings to help reduce runway incursions, and in another effort to attack the same problem, FAA is speeding up deployment of new airport surveillance technology.
Jennifer Michels, Lori Ranson and Adrian Schofield (Washington)
U.S. airlines are preparing to make some major changes to their operating structures over the next two quarters to stay afloat of possible economic downturns and further oil price spikes. Although they reported much-improved third-quarter earnings last week—some even released record quarterly profits—many will pursue an untraditional strategy of selling off or leveraging non-core assets going forward.
