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.
China Eastern Airlines will receive yet more capital, this time 7 billion yuan (US$1 billion), as part of the deal under which it is taking over Shanghai Airlines. The companies say the takeover will be executed through a share swap that will take four or five months to complete. A sale of 7 million yuan in new shares in Shanghai and Hong Kong will bolster China Eastern’s balance sheet, which analysts estimate to be insolvent.
Budget carrier AirAsia X is considering moving into New York-Kuala Lumpur market as Malaysian Airline System quits the route. The Malaysian government says it is willing to consider applications for a new operator to New York. AirAsia X would fly to New York via London, which it serves from Kuala Lumpur, says CEO Azran Osman-Rani. “We are seriously looking into it.”
Thai Airways has asked Airbus to delay deliveries of airbus A380s or allow it to buy other aircraft instead, a move foreshadowed last month when the company said it could not economically deploy the superjumbo. Thai would be interested in taking the A350-1000 instead, but not until 2018, says Executive Chairman Wallop Bhukkanasut. If it does take the six A380s it has ordered, it would like to receive the first in late 2012 instead of in 2011, he says.
