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.
Air France plans to significantly increase its presence at Toulouse as part of its broad initiative to expand in the French provinces. The airline plans to allocate 10 Airbus A320 family aircraft to Toulouse next year and is launching 16 new destinations in April. The new cities to be served from Toulouse will include Berlin, Hamburg, Athens, Geneva, Brussels, Malaga, Seville and Istanbul, among others. With the new flights and destinations, Air France will operate 430 flights between Toulouse and 28 destinations.
EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou is exploring the creation of a low-cost carrier in Africa. His Easy Group has entered into an agreement with Rubicon Investments to develop a business plan for the venture. The work is planned to take several months, so a new airline likely would not start before the end of 2012 at the earliest.
Arab countries are part of a global group of states trying to fend off inclusion of their airlines in the European Union's emissions trading system (ETS) in its current form. But, as they and representatives of their airlines witnessed at the Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO) general meeting here last week, the European Commission still shows no sign of relenting.
