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.
Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller believes that all intra-European airline service that does not go through a hub will soon be taken over by low-cost carriers. Speaking yesterday at the DLR/Roland Berger Aviation Convention in Cologne, Mueller said that those routes have become so uneconomic that legacy carriers will have to pull out. “The game is over,” he noted. Mueller also sees a total of 800 aircraft flying in Europe that do not even earn their cost of capital.
NEW CEO: Alexander Mikheev has been appointed the new CEO of Russian Helicopters. Mikheev was a deputy CEO of Russia’s Rosoboronexport and has held a seat on Russian Helicopters’ board since 2008. Russian Helicopters will continue to expand its range of light helicopter models and also focus on development of its maintenance network in order to increase revenues from after-sales service. The contract with former CEO Dmitry Petrov, who has led the company since 2010, expires on Sept. 27.
Airbus today may officially launch a new version of its A330 widebody at the Beijing Aviation Expo. “We are going to have a product announcement in Beijing,” Airbus Chief Operating Officer-Customers John Leahy said yesterday at an event in London, although he declined to comment further.
