FRANKFURT, 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.
Analysts say he has made the correct moves, notably in his swift expressions of sympathy for the 149 victims and the relatives of those who died last week. French officials say co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately flew the Airbus A320 into a mountainside in the French Alps.
They point to Lufthansa’s admission that Lubitz had told them during his training that he had been treated for serious depression as an example of owning up quickly to bad news.
