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.
FAA awarded Raytheon a contract potentially worth $185 million to upgrade the U.S. long-range radars. Under the FAA Long Range Radar Service Life Extension Program (SLEP), Raytheon will make, test and deploy up to 68 new solid-state transmitter systems. These new systems will replace the tube-based transmitters currently used in the radars. SLEP is being conducted under a memorandum of understanding among FAA, the Defense Dept. and the Dept. of Homeland Security, all of which use the long-range radar network.
British Airways and its unions are preparing for serious arm-wrestling over pension benefit changes, after a long-awaited review revealed the size of the airline's pension plan deficit to be larger than expected. Interim results from an actuarial review showed BA's main pension plan is underfunded by nearly GBP2.1 billion (US$4 billion). Market analysts had predicted the deficit would be closer to GBP1.8 billion, and a BA source admitted that the deficit was "at the high end of our expectations."
Lawmakers on Friday night were expected to confirm Andrew Steinberg as the Transportation Dept.'s next assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs and Mary Peters as transportation secretary.
