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.
Austrian yesterday cleared a major hurdle on its way to be taken over by Lufthansa when the Austrian government approved of a EUR200 million bridge loan that is intended to keep the airline flying until the Lufthansa deal closes. Austrian is expected to be integrated into the growing Lufthansa group in May following approval by the European Commission.
TAP Portugal has changed its plans to buy new Airbus A320s for its European and African networkin light of an expected deep loss in 2008 and an extremely challenging 2009.
Germany’s travel managers say a planned Lufthansa fee contravenes “business ethics” and will burden the economy with additional triple-digit costs, leading the Amadeus global distribution system (GDS) to sue the airline. Verband Deutsches Reisemanagement (VDR) today called on the country’s biggest airline to change its plans.
