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’s takeover of its hometown rival will lift the ailing carrier to the top rank of the Chinese industry, making the company a match for rivals China Southern and Air China in size, if not efficiency. After absorbing Shanghai Airlines, China Eastern will be about equal to Air China as the country’s second-largest airline in terms of passenger traffic and about equal to China Southern as the largest in terms of fleet size.
A cockpit windscreen heater caused a small fire on a Jetstar Airbus A330-200 that resulted in the crew declaring mayday and making an emergency landing at Guam on June 11. Qantas, which owns Jetstar, says an electrical connector of the hearting element malfunctioned, producing sparks and smoke. A Jetstar representative says small flames accompanied the smoke, on the right side of the cockpit near the windscreen. The pilots put out the fire. The two-year-old aircraft, flying from Japan to Australia, was carrying 190 passengers and 13 crewmembers, none of whom was hurt.
