All 150 on board are believed to have been killed. The aircraft in question was 24 years old and originally flown by Germanwings’ parent company, Lufthansa. Germanwings is a low-budget subsidiary of Lufthansa. While the average age of a U.S. domestic commercial airliner is 11 years old, it is not uncommon for aircraft to still be in service at 24, 25, even 30 years old. “Twenty-four is not terribly old for an aircraft,” Bill de Decker, chairman of Texas-based Conklin & de Decker Aviation, told TravelPulse this morning.