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.
AirAsiaX, a new long-haul budget offshoot of Malaysian no-frills carrier AirAsia Bhd., is assessing Melbourne and Newcastle as its next Australian destinations, following its start of Airbus A330-300 flights between Gold Coast and Kuala Lumpur in November. Traffic is almost evenly split on the Gold Coast route, with 48% of passengers from Australia and 52% from Southeast Asia. December and January loads averaged 80%, says AirAsiaX. The airline plans to introduce one Australian destination a year over five years, including Gold Coast.
China projects to build a large commercial aircraft with more than 150 seats that will cost CNY50 billion to CNY60 billion (US$6.9 billion-US$8.3 billion) to develop. The company that will handle the project, to be set up by March, will stand apart from China’s current two main aircraft groups, Avic I and Avic II, the latest financial details show.
BEIJING – The Japanese Defense Ministry wants to buy more airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft and will fit its Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrollers, now under development, with radars that can detect cruise missiles. The moves are responses to rising Chinese cruise missile strike capabilities, says the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, adding that the government also is considering development of an advanced long-range surface-to-air missile system.
