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 Philippine government is refusing to bail out Philippine Airlines as the company rushes to avoid corporate failure by offloading non-core operations. Financial losses reduced equity to only $1.1 million by February, the airline says. The sudden and urgent reorganization, centered on spinning off non-core units, comes only four weeks after the airline said that it was optimistic it would recover this year after a “not-so-good performance” in 2009.
Major suppliers for the Comac ARJ21 regional jet have been rewarded with contracts to make equipment on the C919 156-seat narrowbody that the Chinese manufacturer is developing. Parker Aerospace will build the primary fly-by-wire flight control actuation system and, in association with a subsidiary of national aircraft-making conglomerate Avic, the hydraulic, fuel and inerting systems. Its responsibilities on the ARJ21 are similar.
China Eastern has signed a preliminary agreement to enter SkyTeam by the middle of 2011, giving the alliance two of the three main carriers in China, including China Southern. By joining, China Eastern could be set up for closer cooperation with China Southern, smoothing the way for a possible merger. The agreement was signed and announced on April 16 (DAILY, April 13). A final agreement for China Eastern to join SkyTeam is due in June.
