Lufthansa

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an?s chief advisor Yi?it Bulut has declared his readiness to defend his boss with ?two pistols and hundreds of bullets,? months after he made headlines claiming that telekinesis-wielding international powers were trying to assassinate Erdo?an.

The crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in France has heaped intense pressure on Lufthansa's CEO Carsten Spohr, who in less than a year at the helm has had to grapple with weak earnings, labor unrest and tough competition from lower-cost carriers.
                   

Lufthansa said March 31 it will cancel celebrations marking the German airline's 60th anniversary in the wake of last week's deadly crash of an Airbus jet from its low-cost subsidiary Germanwings.
      

Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of crashed Germanwings plane, has hid the details of an "existing illness" and "corresponding medical treatment" from his employers, according to German prosecutors.

The prosecutors said they found torn-up sick notes in his home, including one covering the day of the crash of the Airbus A320, but didn't say what his illness was.

As airlines struggle to come to terms with the loss of 150 human lives in the crash of Germanwings plane in the French Alps, reports have started to emerge that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 28, had been battling mental health problems.

The Germanwings co-pilot said to have deliberately crashed his Airbus with 149 others aboard into the French Alps suffered serious depression six years ago, German daily Bild reported March 27.
      

"We are really deeply shocked and I wouldn't not have been able to imagine that the situation would have got even worse" said the Chief executive of Lufthansa, parent company of Germanwings Carsten Spohr, at the company's press conference.
Highlights of the conference:

A number of pilots at German low-cost airline Germanwings refused to fly Wednesday following the deadly crash in the French Alps, saying they were mourning the victims of the doomed aircraft.
      

French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy arrived near the site of the German airliner that crashed in the French Alps.
      
The three leaders, looking sombre and dressed in black, met rescue workers and police outside the crisis centre set up in the wake of Tuesday's disaster, in which 150 people were killed.

Hundreds of people are taking part in a rescue operation in the French Alps after a Germanwings airplane with 150 people on board went down near Barcelonette in Southern France while en route from Spain to Düsseldorf.

All 144 passengers and 6 crew are feared dead, and the EU Commission has declared three days of mourning over the incident.