It seems that Laudamotion – the rebirth of Niki has been fully taken over by Irish Low Cost Carrier Ryanair
Ryanair took 75% ownership of the airline shortly after the airline started. It took the final 25% from NL Holding in late December. With this move Laudamotion now becomes a 100% subsidiary of Ryanair Holdings Plc, the Group which owns Europe’s largest airline.
In addition, with Ryanair confirming the takeover, Laudamotion is to increase its fleet from 19 to 25 aircraft for the Summer 2019 season, and to 30 aircraft by Summer 2020. Intrestingly, the fleet will remain all Airbus – compared to the the owners love of the Boeing 737 family aircraft.
In terms of bases, four bases will operate for Sumemr 2019:
- Vienna: 8 Aircraft
- Dussldorf 7 Aircraft
- Stuttgart 3 Aircradt
- Palma: 2 aircraft
Vienna will increase to 11 aircraft in the Winter 2019 season during the Winter 2019.
Laudamotion will also increase job offering for pilots, cabin crew and engineer staff.
And it wouldn’t be a Ryanair style PR without a sale. with 250,000 seat sale with fares starting from €19.99 one way for travel in Feb, Mar, Apr and May from Vienna, Stuttgart, and Dusseldorf bases.
In Quotes
Laudamotion’s CEO, Andreas Gruber, said:
“With the backing of Ryanair, Laudamotion is set to grow strongly over the next 3 years to carry 10m passengers p.a. We will release details of up to 20 new routes for winter 2019 once we have completed our airport and handling negotiations by the end of March. Our summer ’19 program will allow us to carry 6m passengers in year 2, a growth rate of 50% over the 4m carried in year 1, as we continue to offer our customers in Vienna, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and Palma the lowest air fares on a fleet of young Airbus aircraft with widespread passenger appeal and great Lauda service.”
A big win for Ryanair
Let’s not beat around the bush – the fate of Niki was contested the day Air Berlin went into shutdown mode. IAG wanted it, Lufthansa Group wanted it, and Niki Lauder did it. For Ryanair, it went with an offer, and swept past two of the biggest groups in Europe and got the slots and aircraft to build out a new network
And with a 100% of Laudamotion, it’s going to be interesting how Ryanair grows out the airline further – beyond 2020.
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Summer not Sumemr
Dusseldorf not Dussldorf
Niki Lauda not Niki Lauder
Spellcheck is a heck of a thing.