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.
Wuhan’s Tianhe Airport has begun work on an expansion program, with the aim of becoming the largest air hub in central China, even though the facility is probably the one that is most threatened by the country’s rapidly growing high-speed train network. Capacity is intended to rise to 38 million passengers a year from the current 13 million. Tianhe handled 11.3 million passengers in 2009.
Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia will move into a new and bigger home by March 2012 to support its ambitious growth plans. The airline says it will transfer all its operations and headquarters to a new low-cost carrier terminal that will be built near the main terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The facility will be able to handle up to 30 million passengers a year, double the capacity of the existing low-cost carrier terminal, which is about 20 kilometers away from the main terminal at the airport.
The Comac C919 program is driving the formation of a series of partnerships between Chinese and Western companies that will lift the technology and competitiveness of Avic businesses seeking a stronger presence in the world market.
