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.
American continued to make deep capacity cuts in June, with consolidated capacity down by 5.4% and traffic declining 3.5%. The capacity cut resulted in load factor rising 1.7 points to 87.1%. Once again, domestic capacity saw the largest drop of 5.8%, compared with a 3% traffic decline. Domestic load factor was up 2.6 points to 89.5%. On the international front, traffic was down 4.3% on a capacity cut of 4.6%, resulting in load factor growing just 0.3 points to 83%. Transatlantic flights saw the only load factor drop, down 2.6 points to 87%.
The Senate Finance Committee will launch the second phase of the FAA reauthorization debate, scheduling a hearing Thursday to examine the future of aviation financing and the aviation trust fund. The Finance Committee and the Ways & Means Committee on the House side are responsible for deciding what changes should be made to aviation taxes during the reauthorization process. Testifying at Thursday's hearing will be FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag and GAO's Gerald Dillingham. -AS
World Air Holdings this week reported a net loss of $2.3 million for 2006, compared to a profit of $31.6 million in 2005, partly due to a drop in military flying in the fourth quarter. Full-year revenue increased by 5% to $825.7 million as the addition of North American offset a 17% drop in revenue from military operations. World saw "an unexpected curtailment of military troop movements" in the last half of December, and was also subject to a penalty in the second quarter for not achieving minimum performance standards in military operations.
