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 Monday launched a three-times-weekly service to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from its second hub in Munich. The airline uses a Private Air Boeing 737 equipped with 24 business-class seats and 84 seats in coach. Lufthansa has been deploying the Private Air aircraft to destinations such as New York and Dubai. Riyadh is the eighth new destination for the Munich hub this summer. The airline also added Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Miami; Chisinau, Moldova; Tallinn, Estonia; Bari, Italy; Rostock, Germany; Zadar, Croatia, and Faro, Portugal.
Germany’s competition authority Bundeskartellamt has approved of Air Berlin’s plans to increase its stake in Austrian low-fare carrier FlyNiki. Air Berlin last month announced that it plans to take a 49.9% stake in the airline with an option to take full control at a later stage. The deal is still subject to approval by Austria’s competition authority, but it is not expected to face any significant hurdles. Bundeskartellamt has imposed some conditions on the parties without publicly disclosing them.
SAS Group is striving to right itself financially to be in a good position for what is likely to be the last major round of European airline consolidation in the foreseeable future.
