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.
Northwest saw its consolidated load factor drop 1.6 percentage points to 84.3% in May, despite both mainline and system traffic remaining essentially unchanged. The carrier's systemwide capacity rose 1.9% in May, with mainline capacity up 2.7%. Mainline load factor increased 1.7 points to 84.8%, slightly ahead of the system load factor gain. Mainline domestic traffic was up 1.1%, while international traffic was flat. International capacity growth of 4.5% outpaced domestic growth of 1.4%. Regional traffic declined 8.1% ona 7.1% capacity cut.
American continued to dial down its capacity in May, recording a relatively sharp 4% decline for the month. Combined with a 2.9% traffic decline, American's load factor rose by one point to 81.7%. Domestic and international capacity were both cut by about the same amount -- 4% -- while international traffic was down 3.7% compared with the domestic traffic decline of 2.5%. Domestic load factor rose 1.2 points to 84.2%, and international loads were up by 0.3 points to 77.2%. For the year through May, traffic declined 2.1% on a 3% capacity cut.
NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker yesterday told lawmakers that FAA is not responding adequately to six NTSB recommendations from its "most wanted" list. Of the six NTSB items, five are classified as red for "unacceptable response," while the sixth is coded yellow to show that FAA's response is acceptable but the agency is moving too slowly.
