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.
Czech Airlines plans to cut about 20% of its work force in an effort to return to profitability. The airline is in talks with unions about roughly 800 surplus jobs. It reported a 12% drop in passenger numbers in the first half of the year. CEO Radomir Lasak said in a recent interview that it “is obvious that we have to reduce capacity and the size of our fleet.” The Czech government plans to privatize the airline before the yearend. Air France-KLM and the Czech Unimex/Travel Services consortium have been shortlisted.
German ATC provider DFS has suspended controllers from duty following a near crash at Frankfurt Airport on July 17. DFS says an internal investigation revealed that only one controller was supervising departures at the time of the event when it should have been two.
