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.
Hainan Airlines is making a determined effort to set up a base in the western Chinese city of Chengdu, with two of its affiliates applying to set up branch companies there. The move increases pressure on Air China, which already is being challenged by China Eastern Airlines at its Chengdu hub. One of the Hainan Airlines divisions seeking expansion at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport is Lucky Air, which this week opened a third service to the city. All three routes go to Yunnan, the base province of Lucky Air.
In 2011, a Chinese aero-engine industry executive told Aviation Week that, if necessary, the country would muster its resources and develop the CJ-1000 commercial turbofan on its own, so determined was it to end its reliance on Western imports. Two years later, it looks like all those resources had better be mustered. The industry's attempt at luring U.S. and especially Western European help is looking increasingly bleak, though it has secured Russian assistance and has employed expert Western engineers.
