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.
The current aviation crisis has started off somewhat unusually. Even though the events of Sept. 11 happened in the U.S., two major bankruptcies of international airlines since then took place in Europe. Swissair went under merely one month after the terrorist attacks, Sabena followed not much later and left Switzerland and Belgium, two of the smaller European countries, temporarily without a national carrier. Is this an urgent sign that finally the long overdue consolidation in the European airline sector has begun?
By MICHAEL A. TAVERNAPierre Sparaco in Paris and Jens Flottau in Munich contributed to this report.
After months of uncertainty, European nations have given a conditional green light to a huge joint tactical airlifter purchase and endorsed further consolidation of Europe's missile sector. Eight countries last week inked an agreement authorizing the acquisition of 196 A400M transports from Airbus Military Co. (AMC), ending rancorous debate within the governments of two of the nine original partners--Germany and Italy--about whether to fully honor initial commitments to the program.
Airbus deliveries could take an even more drastic decline in 2003, another aftereffect of the airline industry's severe downturn, according to EADS Co-CEO Rainer Hertrich. ``The crisis' second year could be even more difficult than the first,'' Hertrich warned. EADS is, for the first time, facing a situation where its main profit-making affiliate, Airbus, is facing a market fall.
