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.
The Harbin Hafei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Center (HMC) is planned to become the sole supplier for Airbus A350 elevators and rudders by 2017. HMC, a joint venture between Airbus (which holds a 20% stake) and several Chinese partners including the local Avic branch, delivered the first A350 elevator early this week at an official ceremony in Harbin. The company is specializing in composite components and currently employs around 360 staff, most of them local. That is going to increase to around 600 once production has been fully ramped up.
Lufthansa CEO Christoph Franz is leaving the airline when his current contract expires on May 31, 2014. Franz in a statement says he is leaving for “professional reasons” without stating that he is joining Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche as chairman.
Airbus, the Tianjin Free Trade Zone and Chinese manufacturer Avic are in “quite advanced negotiations” to extend an agreement covering Airbus’s final assembly line in Tianjin, says Airbus China Chief Operating Officer Rafael Gonzalez-Ripoll. According to Gonzalez-Ripoll, he is “pretty sure” that a deal can be signed over the next few weeks or couple of months, he told journalists on the sidelines of an Airbus event in Harbin.
