LaudaMotion, later shortened simply to Lauda, was Niki Lauda’s third venture into aviation and at the same time the successor to the insolvent Niki. Within a few years Ryanair acquired the company outright, before it disappeared as an independent brand in 2020.
Photo: Anna Zvereva · License: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source: Wikimedia Commons
From Business-Jet Charter Firm to Niki’s Successor
The company traces back to Amira Air, founded in 2004 by investor Ronny Pecik to offer business-jet charter flights. Niki Lauda, initially a minority owner, bought the company outright in February 2016 and renamed it LaudaMotion; until February 2018, business-jet charter remained its core business. When the insolvent Niki sought a new owner in January 2018, the creditors’ committee awarded the deal to LaudaMotion on 23 January 2018: the Niki brand was retired, around 15 aircraft transferred to LaudaMotion, which began scheduled flights on 25 March 2018. Brief partnerships with Condor, which took over sales and part of the operation for three aircraft from 16 February 2018, and with Eurowings, which helped out on a wet lease until 31 May 2018, both ended quickly.
Ryanair Steps In and Takes Full Control
On 20 March 2018, Ryanair announced it would take a 24.9 percent stake, with an option to later raise it to 75 percent; the EU approved the move, which took effect in August 2018 and was meant to double the fleet from 9 to 18 aircraft. In late December 2018, Ryanair finally bought 100 percent of the shares from NL Holdings, announced in January 2019 along with growth plans for 25 aircraft by the end of 2019 and 40 by summer 2020. In March 2019, the name was shortened to simply Lauda.
Reduced to a Wet-Lease Operator, and the End
The Covid pandemic quickly ended the airline’s independent ambitions: in June 2020, Ryanair cancelled all remaining Airbus orders for Lauda, and from June 2020 onward all flights were operated purely as wet leases under Ryanair flight numbers, with the exception of flights to Tel Aviv, which kept the Lauda brand for the time being because of existing traffic rights. The Vienna base, whose closure had been announced for 29 May 2020, initially stayed open under the Ryanair code, while the German bases in Stuttgart (by October 2020) and Düsseldorf (24 October 2020) were shut down. In late July 2020 it became known that LaudaMotion GmbH would cease operations at the end of 2020, with its fleet transferring to the newly founded, Malta-based Lauda Europe. On 31 October 2020, Lauda ceased flight operations for good.
Tax Dispute, Union Conflict and the Austrian AOC
Lauda had most recently been operating under an Austrian Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC), which under Austrian tax law at the time meant that all cabin and cockpit crew remained liable for Austrian income tax regardless of where they were actually based, even when stationed in Düsseldorf or Mallorca. In May 2020 a wage dispute with the union vida escalated as well; Ryanair threatened at the end of May 2020 to pull out of Vienna entirely, before a temporary agreement was reached in early June 2020. In late July 2020, Ryanair nonetheless announced it would wind down LaudaMotion GmbH together with its Austrian AOC by the end of the year and move flight operations to the newly founded, Malta-based Lauda Europe, which applied for its own Maltese AOC for the Airbus A320 fleet, the group’s second Maltese AOC after Malta Air, set up in 2019 for the Boeing 737 fleet. Lauda directors such as Andreas Gruber and David O’Brien, and Ryanair itself, cited Austrian tax law as the reason, arguing it made it harder to operate flexibly across Europe as a wet-lease provider with locally employed staff, while also criticizing that crew based abroad remained taxed in Austria yet were excluded from Austrian Covid short-time work support. Staff who accepted the most recently negotiated collective agreement were offered jobs at Lauda Europe, under which German and Spanish cabin crew would in future be able to pay tax in their own country of residence; the company’s registered seat moved to Malta, with only a small branch office remaining in Vienna. Subject to certification, Lauda Europe was to start operating from November 2020 as a wet-lease capacity provider for the whole Ryanair Group, taking over the 28 Airbus A320s LaudaMotion had most recently operated.
Further reading: Niki · Austrian Aviation History
Sources (Selection)
- Wikipedia: Lauda (airline)
- derStandard.at: Ryanair takes full control of Laudamotion (German)
- aerotelegraph.com: Ryanair has cancelled Lauda’s jet orders
- aerotelegraph.com: Lauda is relocating from Vienna to Malta
- ch-aviation.com: Austria’s Lauda to close, be replaced with new Maltese unit
Part of the Austrian Aviation History section. An independent, private history project with no connection to Austrian Airlines AG or the Lufthansa Group.