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.
If China succeeds in setting up a commercial aircraft industry, aerospace management know-how learned from BHA Aero Composite Parts Co. Ltd. will help. The Chinese firm, a joint venture of Boeing, U.S. materials supplier Hexcel and local aerospace group Avic I, is overcoming the challenges of competing in global aircraft manufacturing from a Chinese base, including critical cultural issues.
An invasion by Asian budget carriers into Australia's lightly protected aviation market looks likely to threaten the excellent profits of incumbents Qantas Airways and Virgin Blue Airlines. Singapore-based Tiger Airways, a pure low-cost airline, is moving on to Australian domestic routes, while Malaysia's AirAsia Long Haul, also super-low-cost, assaults the international sector.
Qantas Airways Ltd. is setting up a flight training business with the aim of turning out 3,000 pilots in the next 10 years - for other carriers, as well as itself, and maybe air forces. "Until now we have managed our pilot training in-house, servicing only Qantas requirements," says Geoff Dixon, CEO of the Australian airline. "With aviation in the Asia/Pacific region experiencing strong and rapid growth, we believe the time is right to think more broadly about future pilot training."
