FRANKFURT Houston Texans Jersey , April 29 (Xinhua) -- The Germanwings flight crash has left permanent scars on its parent company Lufthansa, the company's chief executive said on Wednesday.
He made the remarks while addressing some 1,500 shareholders at its general shareholders' meeting in the northern port city of Hamburg. "The tragedy has changed us and the scars it has left on our company will remain forever," said Carsten Spohr.
The annual meeting started with a minute's silence to mourn the dead. Spohr said that the company would support the families of the dead.
People who attended the meeting were seen signing their names on a condolence book at the company. The Lufthansa family is mourning, chairman of the supervisory board Wolfgang Mayrhuber said at the meeting.
In a press release, Lufthansa said the shareholders agreed all the nine agenda points at the shareholders' meeting with a large majority.
With regard to the business of the company, the name of Germanwings disappeared. Instead, the company unveiled that it would set up a "pan-European secondary brand, Eurowings", which will develop into number three on the European low-cost market with over 100 aircraft.
The Germanwings flight 4U9525 crashed in southern French Alps when it was flying back to Duesseldorf from Spain's Barcelona on March 24.
Initial investigations found that the co-pilot of the flight was believed to deliberately lowered the height of the flight before he crashed it, killing all the 150 people including 144 passengers on board the flight.
According to the annual report of Lufthansa, the net profit of the company dropped to 55 million euros in 2014 from 313 million in 2013.
Lufthansa needs financial stability with sound profitability. "Our mission is to be the number one choice of our customers, shareholders and staff, and further develop our market position," Spohr told shareholders.
NEW YORK, May 31 (Xinhua) -- China is one of the fastest growing international market for New York City as nearly one million Chinese visited the Big Apple in 2016, said Fred Dixon, president and CEO of NYC & Company, the city's tourism marketer.
"It (China) is still one of the brightest spot on the horizon in terms of potential growth," said Dixon in response to a question by Xinhua at a press conference held Wednesday morning at the newly launched Whitby Hotel in Manhattan midtown.
He said businesses across the city, including hotels, cultural institutions and restaurants, are turning to Chinese travellers, many of them have started offering Chinese language tours, and hot tea, slippers and other amenities.
In order to attract more Chinese visitors, NYC has also expanded its footprint in China by enhancing cooperation with its local partners and more presence on the country's social media, he said.
According to NYC & Company's statistics, over 950,000 Chinese visited NYC in 2016, surpassing Brazilians and Canadians in the ranks of tourists to the city. That represents a sevenfold increase since 2007. Only visitors from Britain outnumbered the Chinese in 2016, but their total of about 1.2 million has not grown since 2007.
Chinese premier arrives in Germany for official visit