A refreshed and updated Australian Aviation will launch when the January/February edition of the magazine goes on sale on January 3.
For 2013, Australian Aviation‘s print edition moves to a new, wider format magazine with an increased page count allowing the introduction of new regular columns and a redesigned news section.
“The decision taken some months back to move to a wider format for the January/February 2013 issue has really allowed us to step back and look at the magazine’s strengths and build on them, and identify any weaknesses and buttress those,” Australian Aviation managing editor and publisher Gerard Frawley writes in his NOTAM editorial column of the January/February edition.
“We have a new design that takes advantage of the larger page size, with a crisp, clean aesthetic that is intended to showcase our quality writing and photography rather than distract (or detract) from them. To me that is the sign of a great magazine and that is what we have aspired to achieve.”
The magazine’s biggest content change is the evolution of its Newsdesk news section to the renamed ‘Preflight’, “where we move away from news reportage and instead start to cover news issues with a bit more depth and context”, Frawley says.
New columns in the magazine come in the form of ‘Asia Watch’, by former National Aviation Press Club Journalist of the Year and chief correspondent for Hong Kong-based Orient Aviation magazine, Tom Ballantyne; ‘Cabin Pressure’, a column on the passenger experience by John Walton, staff journalist at Australian Business Traveller; ‘Flight Levels’, a professional pilots’ issues column, and the new ‘Australian Airports’ column from the Australian Airports Association, with whom Australian Aviation has entered into a media partnership arrangement.
Another new feature is the ‘Locked On’ photo spread pages at the start of the magazine to feature some of the best Australian aviation and defence photography.
Says Frawley: “Building on AA’s existing strengths, the new columns, the restyled news pages, a new format, and a new design, will, we hope, combine to make the magazine even more engaging. Because if I had to summarise Australian Aviation with a single word it would be ‘engaging’ – our aim is for an engaging magazine for people engaged in, or engaged by, aviation in Australia.”
The January/February edition of the magazine goes on sale in Australia on January 2. Print subscribers will begin to receive their copies in the days after Christmas (print copies were due to be lodged with Australia Post on Friday December 21), while the iPad app edition of the mag has been delayed to allow for its redesign, and is due to be deployed on Friday January 11. The Australian Aviation Online January/February digital edition of the magazine is already live.
