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.
Airbus this week is set to receive type certification for the A380, an important marker considering the program was near termination mere months ago. Tom Enders, EADS Co-CEO, revealed last week that the company would have had to consider canceling the A380 if flight testing revealed significant technical problems. It's the first time EADS has acknowledged such a possibility. "Luckily it never got that far," he says.
Liberalization of the transatlantic air transport market could be years off, after the U.S. Transportation Dept. last week withdrew its proposal to relax rules for foreign ownership of airlines. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said that "it was clear from reviewing the comments that the department needs to do more to inform the public, labor groups and Congress about the benefits of allowing more international investment. We need a stronger national consensus about the best means of achieving that objective."
Airbus is moving to a composite fuselage for the first time, as the manufacturer launches its new A350 long range jet; the fuselage skin will be made up of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP). "This innovation in manufacturing permits easier maintainability and reparability of individual airframe parts," Airbus said. This allows "the structure of the panels to be much better optimized in terms of the design to the stress and load requirements of each individual airframe part."
