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.
German cargo startup AeroLogic, in a shuffle of its senior management team, appointed Thomas Papke, previously managing director and account manager for operations, its new head of procurement in Lufthansa’s passenger airline division. He will be succeeded by Ulf Weber, who previously was responsible for finance and human resources as a managing director. Weber’s previous job is taken over by Joerg Eberhart, currently VP-commercial, marketing and network at Air Dolomiti.
Germania, a German scheduled and wet-lease operator, is adding Beirut, Lebanon, to its network. The airline will fly one weekly roundtrip each from Duesseldorf and Berlin using Boeing 737s. Germania already serves Aleppo and Damascus in Syria. The airline has seven Boeing 737s in its scheduled network; 11 aircraft are wet-leased to other operators, among them Air Berlin and TUIfly.
The Board of Airline Representatives in Germany said Fraport’s proposed landing fee increases are threatening the competitiveness of Frankfurt Airport and will lead to lower growth than forecast. Fraport wants to push through a 20% increase in fees from 2012 to 2015. The rise comes on top of a 13% increase proposed to go into effect by the end of 2011, provided all the parties’ agree on the entire package.
