Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
The court supervising the bankruptcy of Japan Airlines Corp. has approved the carrier’s rehabilitation plan. The approval was expected because it was backed by Japan Airlines’ creditors. It opens the way for the company to reduce staff to 32,600 by March 31, down from 48,714 a year earlier. The disposal of mostly peripheral subsidiaries, already underway, is part of the strategy and accounts for many of the job cuts.
The CALT Long March 7 medium-heavy space launcher will go into production in 2014, according to current plans, completing a new family of Chinese rockets with new fuels and engines. Sized between the Long March 5 and 6, the new rocket will offer up to 720 tons (1,590,000 lb.) of liftoff thrust from six engines fed by liquid oxygen and kerosene. The first stage of the Long March 7 will have two YF100 engines, CALT Vice President Hao Zhaoping tells Aviation Week. The YF100 is already known to have a thrust of 120 tons.
As the global aircraft industry warily watches Comac’s progress in developing the C919 narrowbody airliner, new data suggests that the designers are not achieving the low weights expected of an advanced new design. And while Comac is promising a 10% reduction in direct operating costs, the first batch of orders reveal that Chinese state airlines are even more reluctant to buy the aircraft than expected.
