The Austrian airline Laudamotion is now history. Flight operations have been finally ceased and the company will soon go into voluntary liquidation. The carrier confirmed to Aviation Direct that it will no longer operate flights.

Laudamotion was thus a very short-lived scheduled airline that emerged in 2018 from the remains of the insolvent Air Berlin subsidiary Niki. After a real soap opera about the jurisdiction for the insolvency proceedings, the purchase contract concluded by the German trustee with the IAG subsidiary Niki was overturned. In the second attempt, the contract for the Niki assets went to what was then Laudamotion GmbH, a Niki Lauda airline company that emerged from Amira Air. The business jet area was quickly spun off into Laudamotion Executive GmbH and is now owned by a Swiss company and therefore has nothing in common with the low-cost airline.

Niki Luftfahrt GmbH, whose assets were added to Laudamotion GmbH, emerged from Aero Llyod Austria GmbH in November 2003. The German mother of the vacation airline went bankrupt and Niki Lauda took over the majority. The partnership with Air Berlin, which a few years later resulted in a complete takeover, was ultimately Niki’s downfall. The collapse of Air Berlin tore the Austrian subsidiary as well as its sister in Switzerland.

After receiving the insolvent Niki at the second attempt, Niki Lauda initially announced a full-service carrier. Condor acted as cooperation partner for a very short time, more in the course of the first flight - a media presentation event - Ryanair presented as a partner. The company, headed by Michael O'Leary, initially took over 75 percent and only a few months later also the remaining 25 percent. The state of health of Niki Lauda, ​​who died soon after as a result of his illness, was very badly damaged from summer 2018.

Numerous Laudamotion employees unanimously report that with the death of Niki Lauda, ​​a different wind set in. Ryanair built up more and more pressure and caused one labor law scandal after another in Austria. The sad climax is likely to have been the ignorance of the works council, with Laudamotion being defeated in court in the first instance. Since the chairman of the workers' committee was denied access to the premises, she had to obtain an injunction from the court. According to the District Court of Schwechat, the company violated this in September 2020, which is why a fine of well over 20.000 euros was imposed. Laudamotion can appeal against this.

The Laudamotion era, which was also advertised as Austria's number 1 lowcoster, was short-lived. The bases in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart were closed and the staff there is a case for the local employment offices. In Vienna, Lauda caused a sensation in the public for weeks with a show, presumably staged from A to Z, around the collective agreement, which incidentally is not applicable to the successor Lauda Europe Ltd. Numerous employees took to the streets twice. Contrary to Niki Lauda's promise that there will be no more temporary work, Ryanair reintroduced it just under a year later and simply no longer applied the collective agreement to Crewlink employment relationships.

What is left of Laudamotion now? Nothing. The company is now being wound up and everything that is a so-called asset for Ryanair is already being operated by the Maltese successor company Lauda Europe Ltd. The wages have fallen sharply due to the corona pandemic and now Lauda is definitely no longer an Austrian airline, but has its headquarters in Malta. The Maltese Aviation Authority is therefore responsible for oversight. The “Austrian solution” for Niki is therefore over - at least as far as Laudamotion GmbH is concerned. The Austrian licenses will be returned because you no longer need them because you got new ones in Malta. The now former airline Laudamotion confirmed to Aviation Direct that the very last scheduled flight was carried out on October 19, 2020. That was it with the Austrian Laudamotion.