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.
Three years of belt-tightening to ride out a global economic downturn should have put European airlines in a strong position to ride a recovery wave. There is just one problem—there is no wave. Rather, carriers face a fresh storm of problems in the guise of sustained economic weakness in Europe; crisis situations in North Africa, the Middle East and Japan; and fuel back on an uphill trajectory. Airline managers once again are scrambling to see what further cost-cutting measures they can come up with.
In spite of the much improved global economy, Lufthansa’s passenger airline group (comprising Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, BMI and Germanwings) saw its operating loss widen by 4.8% to €391 million ($568 million) in the first quarter. Lufthansa and Austrian narrowed their losses, but only slightly, while Swiss made a small operating profit. Germanwings and particularly BMI plunged into much deeper red ink.
MTU Aero Engines plans to build a new facility in Munich in anticipation of brisk production of Pratt & Whitney’s PW1000G geared turbofan engines. MTU plans to start construction of the new site this summer and will invest about €20 million ($29 million) in the project. CEO Egon Behle says the existing orders for various engine variants are worth about $700 million for MTU alone. Negotiations on the exact work share on the Airbus A320NEO engine version are to be finalized in time for the Paris air show in mid-June.
