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.
Airlines should be able to improve overall safety levels by more effectively addressing loss-of-control procedures in training and operational venues. Loss of control has replaced controlled flight into terrain as the No. 1 cause of accidents in recent years. Overall, the airline industry has reached a plateau for safety performance improvement in the past decade. But the Flight Safety Foundation’s European Aviation Safety Seminar in Istanbul concluded that this must change.
Airlines seemed well positioned just a few months ago to absorb higher fuel costs, which were forecast to rise through 2011 along with rising crude oil prices. Of course, that was barring any shocks to the system. Now all bets are off, with oil supplies in Libya and some other oil-producing countries at varying degrees of risk and crude oil prices at their highest level in two years.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has downgraded its 2011 profit guidance for the airline industry in spite of higher-than-expected demand. IATA believes its members will make an $8.6 billion combined profit this year, down from the $9.1 billion expected late last year. The revised profit prediction amounts to a 46% fall from last year’s level, when airlines reached a $16 billion profit, the highest in the history of airlines.
