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.
As the investigation into the crash of a Helios Airways' aircraft (DAILY, Aug. 16) intensified, one former engineer revealed that rapid cabin decompression -- suspected as a factor in the accident -- had occurred on the Boeing 737-800 previously. A former Helios Airways chief engineer, Kyriakos Pilavakis, told Cypriot television that the aircraft experienced rapid cabin decompression on Dec. 18, 2004, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Larnaca. It is unclear, however, whether the incident can be linked to last week's crash.
British Airways expects to operate an almost normal flight schedule today after the airline slowly recovered from last week's incapacitating strikes at London Heathrow Airport. "We'd hope to achieve a return to normal operations as air crew and planes that were off position are brought back into position," an airline spokesperson said.
Accident investigators have started their search into why a Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 crashed near Athens, Greece, on Sunday. The aircraft hit mountainous terrain near the city, killing all 121 people on board. The crash was the first for Helios, a Cypriot airline launched in 1999, and one of the worst in Greek aviation. The cockpit voice and flight data recorders have been recovered from the wreckage and brought to Paris for analysis.
