He started his journalism career in 1992 as a freelance writer for Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest daily national newspaper and soon specialised in air transport. Jens joined Aviation Week and Aviation Daily in 2000 as one of the European correspondents. Later his role was expanded to cover international air transport. In 2013 he was named Managing Editor Commercial.
Jens frequently appears on radio and TV to comment on industry matters. In 2003, he received the Hugo Junkers Award of the German aviation press for his coverage of Fairchild Dornier’s bankruptcy. He was named the country’s top travel and air transport writer by the Travel Industry Club three times. Jens graduated from the Munich School of Journalism.
European hubs are the weakest structurally in the world because airlines in the region face the most low-cost carrier competition and greater pressure in some of their long-haul markets due to the Persian Gulf carriers. Nonetheless, the big European airlines believe they have found ways to stabilize. Structural problems at these hubs are not only the result of competition. “Short-haul-to-short-haul hubs are pretty disastrous,” says John Strickland of London-based JLS Consulting.
SAS made a bold decision to renew its entire long-haul fleet. But whether the airline will actually survive and be able to fund the investments is beyond its control. That decision is made by the European Commission.
It was almost exactly 40 years ago that FedEx founder Fred Smith had the idea of flying a small fleet of Dassault Falcon 20s into Memphis, Tenn., from various cities in order to unload and redistribute packages and fly off again. While his idea has long become the dominant paradigm across the legacy airline world, new threats are putting it to the test.
