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 Chinese commercial aviation industry is being hit with a major crackdown on corruption that has led to the suicide of one government official and the arrest of other government and airline officials. The focus of the campaign is bribery for favorable route rights granted by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), with China Southern, the country’s largest airline, most deeply embroiled.
Indonesian low-cost carrier Mandala Airlines has opened its first two international routes, flying daily from Jakarta to Singapore and three times a week from Balikpapan on Borneo to Singapore. The airline, Indonesia's fifth-largest by seat capacity, will also start flights to Hong Kong on July 19 and Macau on July 21.
Chinese commercial aircraft builder Comac aims to complete selection of suppliers for its C919 narrow-body airliner this week, about five months behind schedule. The country’s three biggest airlines will order up to 100 C919s this year, probably at the Zhuhai air show in November, acting as initial customers under state direction. They will not be launch customers, because the project was launched long ago, in May 2008. Indeed, serious marketing of the aircraft to Chinese customers has begun only in the past few weeks.
