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.
Aer Lingus was close to merging with another airline in 2012, according to the U.K. Competition Commission’s (CC) final report on Ryanair’s shareholding in the competing Irish carrier. The report lists some details of discussions in the appendix section, but it does not identify the potential partner and some parts are heavily edited, because most of the information is confidential. But according to the U.K. CC, “Aer Lingus and another airline entered into confidential discussions regarding a possible combination” in early 2012.
American Airlines and US Airways have won their first battle against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), getting a tentative start date of Nov. 25 for the trial that would hear DOJ’s challenge against the carriers’ proposed merger. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted the airlines’ desire for an expedited schedule, ruling that DOJ’s request for an early March 2014 start date was not reasonable. “March 3, I think, is too far off,” the judge said in a hearing on the issue. “It needs to be a tighter, expedited schedule.”
