Lufthansa is considering random health checks on pilots in an effort to prevent disasters like the Germanwings crash that rocked Europe in March.
The unannounced medical checks would be similar to doping tests in terms of the surprise factor, Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr told FAZ newspaper on Friday.
Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz is believed to have crashed flight 4U9525 into a mountainside in southern France on March 24, killing himself and 149 others on board. Germanwings is a subsidiary of Lufthansa.
A Lufthansa spokesman told dpa that the airline would only introduce the new measure in coordination with Germany's task force for aviation safety, adding that the tests could help detect medication that pilots may be hiding from their employer.
In the FAZ interview, Spohr added that doctors may be released from their duty of confidentiality if a pilot they are treating is deemed a danger to passengers.
Separately, it emerged that air accident investigators staged a test flight on May 12 to reconstruct the conditions aboard the Germanwings flight when Lubitz forced its descent into an Alpine mountainside.
Germany's crash investigation authority BFU said the reconstruction may help investigators analyse sounds recorded during the Germanwings flight.
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