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.
Ryanair in June carried 24% more passengers than last year and improved its load factor from 79 to 87%. During the past 12 months, Ryanair filled 84% of its seats. Also, the company sold 97% of its tickets over the Web. A year ago, 94% of its customers chose the web site for booking. For the January-March period, Ryanair recorded a quarterly loss, the first since it went public in 1997. The airline expects yields to continue their rapid decline for the remainder of the year as it adds capacity and deploys its new fleet of Boeing 737-800s. -JF
In what is seen by many as a first significant step towards consolidation of the highly crowded German leisure flying market, Hapag-Lloyd Flug and Air Berlin on Monday announced an alliance involving schedule coordination, code sharing and joint sales and marketing.
Swiss International VP-Human Resources Kurt Renggli will leave the airline at the end of September. He moves to telecommunications group Swisscom to accept a similar post. Renggli started his carrier at Swiss at what was then regional carrier Crossair in 2000, and became the relaunched carrier's head of human resources in 2002. -JF
