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.
South Korea will loosen restrictions on budget airlines that bar them from flying internationally in their first two years of operations. The move will open opportunities for the many budget airlines that hope to begin flying in South Korea in the next year: Busan Air, Air Korea, Incheon Tiger Airways, Yeongnam Air and PurpleAir. The first three in that list are affiliates of Asiana, Korean Air and Singapore’s Tiger Airlines, respectively.
China Southern subsidiary Xiamen Airlines will set up a base at Changsha, a city of 6 million people in the south-central province Hunan. Following common Chinese practice, it has formed a joint company with the provincial government to run the base, and the province says it will offer favorable policies in return. China Southern, which owns 60% of Xiamen Airlines, already has a base at Changsha Huanghua Airport.
Malaysian Airline System is looking for a merger partner, says CEO Idris Jala, while stressing that the company is not yet negotiating a tie-up with anyone. A preferred partner would be one that is dissimilar to Malaysian, says Idris. That would rule out traditional long-haul network airline businesses. Idris predicts serious overcapacity in the industry within five years because of the number of aircraft on order.
