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 Japanese Ministry of Defense will ask parliament for 95 billion yen to upgrade 22 F-15Js and buy parts for a further 38 in the budget year that begins April 1, 2009. The move was foreshadowed as an interim response to U.S. refusal to sell Japan – or any ally – the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, which has delayed the order for and introduction of a new advanced fighter.
The contraction in Chinese airline traffic is worsening. Traffic is not only falling; the rate of fall is accelerating, with no sign in the latest monthly figures of a turnaround. Traffic is suffering particularly from a collapse in international passenger business — a result of the weak global economy, fuel surcharges and a visa clampdown since the Tibetan riots in March. But domestic traffic is now also contracting for all of China’s big-three airlines.
Qantas will merge with another major airline sooner rather than later, says departing CEO Geoff Dixon. “Other airlines are starting to merge and we must be part of that,” Dixon says. Although Qantas is the world’s 10th biggest airline, he argues that “we still are not big enough in five to 10 years to do it on our own. I believe it will be sooner rather than later.”
