cheaper than paying to put the gas in your car. so really, nothing untoward. yesterday afternoon, in fact i was talking to some more passengers boarding one of the later germanwings flights and said to them you know have you got any fears about getting on this flight now? it s a budget flight. we know there s been an accident this morning. they say, look you know it is the way we get around europe now. it just seems so normal to us. you know it s something we have to deal with. but i don t think people are necessarily concerned about the safety record of low-cost flights, christine. i think you re right. karl penhaul, thank you for that from spain. a lufthansa spokesperson says the airline will no longer use flight 9525. lufthansa is the parent company of germanwings. it killed all 150 on board. so does low cost mean low safety? let s talk about it a little more with cnn money correspondent allison kosik. you heard what karl was saying.
warns that number could change as more details emerge in the coming days. christine? thank you, rosie tompkins in dusseldorf this morning. the king of spain canceling a state visit to france to return home this morning. the germanwings flight originated in barcelona, and a count of spanish surnames suggest about 45 of those passengers may have been spanish nationals. still no official count from officials in spain. mourning along with those families in haltern, germany, are the residents of the small spanish town where the german exchange students attended that program. hundreds gathering at a mass to remember their friends. cnn s karl penhaul is there. and some of those spanish students had just been in germany on the first leg of that exchange. reporter: yeah, absolutely, christine. those spanish students had been in germany three weeks ago, and this was the return leg. and so for the last week 16 german students here in this town just north of barcelona had been continuing to
germanwings specifically has a very good reputation. it was launched by lufthansa in 2002 to compete with ryanair and easyjet. and lufthansa has one of the best safety records in the world. now, the plane that crashed yesterday, the airbus a320 is also one of the safest in the world. in fact there are more than 6,200 of those aircraft in service at hundreds of airlines as we speak. that s why they call it the workhorse of air travel. thank you for that. tension rising between israel and the white house. president obama, new criticism of prime minister benjamin netanyahu amid allegations of espionage. the very latest on the strained relationship next.
impressive depiction from barcelona, notice the vertical profile. it makes an incline and gets up to cruising altitude of 38,000 feet. it comes down very quickly. kind of a very steady decline in the altitude coming down over an eight-minute period and the crash point at 6500 feet high. what s interesting about this region of the alps and the crash zone is that s precisely where the rain and snow line will be on wednesday. so anywhere north of this a lot of debris strewn about, snow showers possible south of it where organizers are in place, 4,000 to 5,000 feet that s where we have rain in the forecast. so all sorts of weather going to hamper the operations. the crash zone in this region about 6500 feet high. 6500 feet high tough going there. breaking news a lufthansa spokesperson says the airline will no longer use the flight number 9525. retiring the number. that s the number of the germanwings flight that crashed yesterday, killing all 150 people on board. so a lot of discussion
carriers. in this case, this plane was 24 years old. and 33 euros i think is the starting fare. you can see why there are people from all walks of life. some might not have been able to fly if it hadn t been for that. what do their track records look like? for the european carriers the discount carriers they ve got strong safety record they re really on par with the industry as a whole. germanwings specifically has a very good reputation. it was launched by lufthansa in 2002 to compete with ryanair and easey easyjet. and lufthansa has one of the best safety records in the world. the plane that crashed yesterday, the airbus a320 is also one of the safest in the world. as you said earlier, these airlines really give access to a lot of people to just be able to go places they wouldn t ordinarily be able to go. richard quest was reporting yesterday that lufthansa in particular has a maintenance division that is you know bar none, among the best in the world.