The airline Lauda announced on Thursday evening that the 12 pilots and 82 flight attendants who have not given their consent to the new collective agreement will be dismissed. According to managing director Andreas Gruber, there will be no dismantling measures beyond these 2020 people in the summer of 94.

As reported, Ryanair will no longer let the airline Lauda fly for its own account under OE flight numbers, but in the meantime almost all connections have been converted to the FR code. Lauda then acts as a wet lease provider for the sister company Ryanair DAC on many routes. Lauda boss Andreas Gruber said that this change would have commercial advantages for Lauda.

The Lauda fleet will level off at 30 Airbus A320s. Originally this was to be increased to 38 machines this year. In Vienna, ten A320s will be operated on behalf of Ryanair DAC. In the original planning before the Corona crisis, 16 A320s would have flown for their own account and an additional three Boeing 737-800s from Ryanair would have been employed in wet lease. All planned takeovers of further Airbus A320s will not take place due to the effects of the corona pandemic. You want to renegotiate existing contracts.

In the future, Lauda will be positioned as a pure wetlease operator. This means that the carrier will no longer operate flights for its own account under the OE code, but will fly on behalf of other airlines. Naturally, these are sister companies within the Ryanair Group, to which, along with Lauda, ​​the Ryanair DAC (= operating airline Ryanair), Malta Air, Buzz and Ryanair UK belong. The parent company is the listed company Ryanair Holdings plc.

For passengers, this means that they will formally travel on Ryanair flights under the FR flight number in the future. The Lauda A320 fleet is not to be repainted, and the uniforms are to be retained. The company's press release says that the “branding” will be retained. This primarily refers to the paintwork of the aircraft, the company name, the uniforms and the notice on the homepage that the Ryanair flight is operated by Lauda.

Lauda Managing Director Andreas Gruber did not want to answer whether there will be a downsizing in the administration in Schwechat or not. In May 2020, the entire Austrian workforce was registered with the Schwechat Public Employment Service for dismissal.

How many people are actually employed in the field of flying staff obviously does not seem to be exactly known in Dublin. In the press releases in March and April there was talk of over 500 employees, in the meantime 550 and even 600, in the struggle for the collective agreement one spoke of 300 high-paying jobs and now 330 jobs are said to have been secured. It should be noted that around 90 employees were dismissed before short-time work and 94 more have to leave. The bottom line is that the number of flying staff will likely be between 330 and 360 in the future.

“The enormous challenges faced by all non-state-supported airlines in Austria are underlined by Level's announcement today that it would file for bankruptcy and cease operations with immediate effect. Lauda regrets that these significant changes to our business model and the reduction in the number of A320s stationed in Vienna mean that we will have to say goodbye to a number of crew members who were unwilling to accept the new collective agreement, which was implemented by over 92 percent of our pilots and 67 Percent of the flight attendant was accepted. With this new CT, Lauda can now reopen its Vienna base and concentrate on becoming Austria's second largest airline. Thanks to the efforts of our Viennese pilots and cabin crew, we are pleased to be able to save the vast majority of our flight crew jobs in Vienna and are proud that the Lauda branding will continue in Vienna. We look forward to welcoming our customers on board our flights again in July and to being able to rebuild our business in the future ”.