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.
EasyJet will start serving Southend Airport, 57 miles east of London, next year. The airline will move three Airbus A319s to the airport from its London Stansted base in April 2012 and will initially start flights to Barcelona, Faro and Ibiza. EasyJet has signed a 10-year contract with airport operator Stobart Group. A new terminal building is to be completed later this year, as will be a runway extension. The airport will have a rail link to London’s Liverpool Street Station with travel times of about 50 min.
Qatar Airways has hired advisers for an initial public offering (IPO), according to a statement by CEO Akbar Al Baker. The IPO “will definitely be earlier than people expect,” Al Baker said at the opening of a new terminal in Doha, Qatar. He has mentioned the possibility numerous times before, but referred to much later launch dates. Al Baker stated that “as the performance of the airline improves, the closer will be the IPO.” He did not disclose the identity of advising banks.
Emirates is adding Baghdad to its network in mid-November. The airline will operate a four-times-weekly service using Airbus A330-200s. Baghdad is the airline’s second destination in Iraq after Basra, which it started serving in February. Emirates says it expects the service to be used mainly by government and industry officials and hopes to benefit from the fact that only few international airlines fly to Baghdad so far.
