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 aircraft leasing market is showing early signs of strength, giving hope of some recovery in 2010, despite airline bankruptcies, widespread capacity reductions and the likelihood of several more difficult months.
Qantas’s budget carrier, Jetstar Airways, will play an increasingly important role as the group pushes ahead with low-cost expansion while repeatedly cutting mainline operations.
China Eastern Airlines says it lost ¥15.3 billion (US$2.2 billion) in 2008 but is refusing to consider job cuts as it seeks to reduce costs. The loss represented a colossal 37% of revenue and was blamed on weak demand and high fuel prices early in the year that were followed by unprofitable hedging. Dwarfing the ¥7 billion in new capital that the government has granted to the company to get it through the recession, the scale of the financial deficit suggests that China Eastern will need yet more state funding.
