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 on Sept. 22 named Christoph Franz as its new CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2011. Franz will succeed Wolfgang Mayrhuber who is retiring at the end of the year. Franz, who has previously run the passenger airline division, will be replaced in his current position by Carsten Spohr, currently the CEO of Lufthansa Cargo. Karl Ulrich Garnadt, now a member of the passenger airline executive board, will be named CEO at Lufthansa Cargo.
Air France and Aeroflot are extending their code-share agreement. Effective Oct. 24, Air France will put its code on Aeroflot services from Moscow to Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhnevartovsk while the Aeroflot code will be on Air France services from Paris to Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille and Strasburg.
SAS Group and the Estonian government agreed on a phased exit of the Scandinavian airline as a shareholder of Estonian Air. SAS will not participate in a capital increase at Estonian that is led by the government. That will boost the government stake to 90% while it will dilute SAS's shareholding in the airline from 49% to 10%. After four years, SAS can sell the remaining stake at fair market value. SAS Group has been following its Core SAS strategy focusing on its Scandinavian home market. The airline already sold Spanair and its stake in BMI.
