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.
Qatar Airways is looking at developing a larger narrowbody portion in its fleet. “Fifteen percent of our future fleet will be narrow-bodies,” CEO Akbar al-Bakr told The DAILY at the ITB travel fair in Berlin. Qatar is considering an order for up to 20 Bombardier C Series (including options) or a similar number of Embraer 190 family jets. But al-Bakr says the “aeroplane (C Series) is not yet defined.” The airline also anticipates that it will be one of the early customers of a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 family replacement.
Austrian Airlines’s main shareholder ÖIAG cleared the entry of Mohammed bin Issa al-Jaber as a new investor for the airline. Al-Jaber proposed to take a 20% stake in the airline earlier this year in a capital increase. The move still needs to be approved by Austrian’s board of directors and the annual shareholder meeting. ÖIAG holds a 42% stake in the carrier.
The planned merger agreement between low-fare airlines TUIfly and Germanwings is taking longer than initially expected, and the deal may not yet be waved through at the next meetings of TUI’s and Lufthansa’s supervisory boards scheduled later this month, sources close to the matter say. The sources say Lufthansa’s negotiating team has been negatively surprised by a look at TUIfly’s financial situation, which was described as worse than expected.
