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.
Swiss decided not to continue talks to join the oneworld alliance, raising serious doubts about the airline's future strategic options. The airline said the cost of joining the alliance would have outweighed the benefits, adding it has not reached an agreement with British Airways on exchanging proprietary frequent flyer data (DAILY, March 24).
JP Morgan is becoming more pessimistic about Ryanair's short-term earnings performance, and analyst Chris Avery reduced his earnings estimate for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005, from flat to a decrease of 22%. "We feel sufficiently uncomfortable with the conflicting messages coming from the company that we are departing from our guidance and cutting our estimates to a level materially below last year's results and current company guidance," Avery wrote in a research note.
Ryanair posted a EUR206.7 million net profit (US$252.6 million) for the year ended March 31, the first decline in 13 years, and also recorded its first quarterly loss -- EUR3.3 million in January-March -- since 1997. Revenues grew 28% to EUR1.07 billion, and the airline carried 47% more passengers. Ryanair ended the year with EUR1.2 billion in cash. The year before, the airline's profit totaled EUR239 million, and it was also profitable in last year's fourth quarter, with a profit of EUR45.3 million.
