Economy of Germany

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.
                   

German national airliner Lufthansa announced Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had reported his "major depressive episode" back in 2009.

Lubitz is thought to have steered a Germanwings Airbus A-320 into the slopes of the French Alps last Tuesday causing the death of all 150 on board.

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Families of the Germanwings plane crash are filing a class action suit against Lufthansa. The initiative was taken by lawyer Erring Fouler who believes that there is a legal case against the German airline's management that showed reckless negligence in the case of pilot Andreas Lubitz.

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.

Airlines rushed on March 26 to change their rules so as to require a second crew member in the cockpit at all times, hours after French prosecutors suggested a co-pilot who barricaded himself alone at the controls of a jetliner had crashed it on purpose.
   

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.
      

Police searched the house of the Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz on Thursday, as it emerged that he intentionally initiated the descent of the plane, which crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday.

According to the local government in Dusseldorf, the most recent regular security check on Lubitz, which had been carried out on January 27, established nothing unusual.