Travel Massive Hamburg Chats with Aviation Journalist

Back in November, Travel Massive Hamburg sat down with Andreas Spaeth, Aviation and Travel Journalist, to get some insider tips and tricks.

In a relaxed and open atmosphere, we received first-hand, insider information about civil aviation and travel journalism from one of the most well-known aviation journalists in Germany and worldwide. Besides enjoying the input and lively stories from Andreas, most of the 20 participants used the opportunity to ask him about different topics, from travel, journalism, media and even about aviation mysteries, which made for an interactive evening at the SUPERBUDE ASTRA Rockstarsuite.

Andreas started by giving an overview of travel journalism, highlighting its decline and giving advice to those interested in pursuing a career in this direction. He also pointed out that travel journalism can no longer be regarded as a principal job but as a complement. He shared with us the process of the creation of an entry in the travel section of a newspaper, stressing the importance of awakening the reader’s curiosity. In order to achieve this, inspiration and wording don’t just come from learned abilities, but from experience and talent.

How an expert performs in times of disastrous events in aviation

In this portion of Andreas chat, he drew on three crises:

• The disappearance of flight MH370 in 2014
• The shooting down of flight MH17 in 2014
• The 2015 Germanwings crash

Besides telling us about each event, he mentioned the importance of quickly reacting to the questions that the media asked him as an expert, and at the same time avoid jumping to conclusions too soon.

These cases and their analysis are comprehensively presented in Andreas’ book “Crashtest. Die verborgenen Risiken des Fliegens”.

At the end of the talk, Andreas shared with us some of the topics he sees unfolding in the aviation and travel industries in coming years.

He stressed that a steady growth can only be possible if moving towards “environmentally-friendly” developments. He made a call to reconsider our reasons for traveling, which should not be based on cheap airline fares but about knowledge and broadening of horizons and about taking travel decisions which positively influence our environment.

If you want to learn more about Andreas for yourself, take a look at this live interview he had back in 2014 with Deutsche Welle TV about the crash of the MH17.

We want to thank Andreas for the great event and to all of you who could make it.

Berenice has devoted herself to the Chinese outbound tourism market and currently working as a freelancer based in Hamburg, Germany. You can learn more about Berenice on her Travel Massive profile. For event information join the Hamburg chapter page.