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.
Rising fuel costs are once again raising the specter of airline consolidation in Europe, but also driving Europe's low-fare sector to employ capacity control measures to withstand the pressure on their cost base. “You will see the consolidation process continue” as a result of high fuel costs, says Ryanair CFO Howard Miller. And he's not alone. “We have entered a phase in aviation of very high fuel prices,” says Alex Cruz, CEO of Vueling Airlines. “We think there will be some consolidation.”
French air accident investigators looking into the crash of Air France Flight AF447 identified serious pilot training shortcomings that may have contributed to the loss of the Airbus A330-200 two years ago. Among the findings are that “the co-pilots had received no high-altitude training for the “unreliable [indicated air speed] procedure and manual aircraft handling” and also that there is no crew resource management “for a crew made up of two co-pilots in a situation with a relief captain.”
Lufthansa is significantly curtailing planned capacity growth for this winter after reporting second-quarter results below market expectations and wider losses at many of its airline subsidiaries. CFO Stephan Gemkow said that capacity will grow only 6% compared with the planned 12%. The airline will push network expansion further out, reduce aircraft size in weaker markets and temporarily cut some destinations. The move mirrors similar steps taken by its rival Air France-KLM.
