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.
Lufthansa’s executive board has named Simone Menne its new CFO. Chairman Juergen Weber said, “With Simone Menne, we are appointing . . . an experienced Lufthansa manager, who is fully conversant with the Group and our industry.” Menne, 51, has been CFO at BMI British Midland since 2010 and was head of finance at Lufthansa Technik from 2004. She will replace Stephan Gemkow, who resigned last week to become CEO of German retail holding Haniel.
A disappointing first quarter for Air France-KLM only emphasizes the need to enforce a revival plan that calls for drastic changes to the company’s labor contracts, says CFO Philippe Calavia. “We have to dramatically transform group labor conditions and improve productivity,” he said in during a conference call to discuss the 48.1% year-on-year increase in the March quarter’s operating loss to €597 million (US$781 million), as a 6% increase in revenue was overshadowed by a 9% rise in costs.
European legacy carriers have tried hard to get costs under control, with limited success. And now an increasing number of them are reverting to the more radical option of outsourcing.
