Ryanair’s wholly-owned Austrian subsidiary Laudamotion has hit some turbulence in the past few days. One of its flights to Dublin was met by emergency services after a troubled flight last week, and Austria’s civil aviation authority has placed the no-frills airline on a watchlist, officials have told The Currency.

“I can confirm that Austro Control has placed Laudamotion under enhanced supervision as a result of observations made while exercising oversight duties last month,” a spokesperson for the authority said this Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Dublin Airport Authority told The Currency about flight OE1342: “Dublin Airport’s fire and ambulance services were deployed to a Laudamotion flight that had arrived from Vienna on the morning of Monday November 25 after the crew had complained of feeling unwell. The deployment of emergency services is standard operating procedure in such circumstances.”

“This aircraft was inspected by Lauda engineers and has since returned to service.”

Laudamotion spokesperson

A spokesperson for Laudamotion told The Currency that the flight “was delayed due to a cabin crew illness”. The airline did not confirm widespread Austrian media reports of radio communication failure and smelly gas emanations on the flight. “This aircraft was inspected by Lauda engineers and has since returned to service,” the spokeswoman said. 

At the time, passengers waiting for the aircraft to take them on its next flight from Dublin to Vienna were delayed. “Customers were provided with refreshment vouchers and the flight departed at 12:20pm, a delay of just over two and a half hours. Lauda sincerely apologised to passengers affected by this delay.” Media reports suggest this was due to the airline sending another aircraft while the one involved in the incident remained grounded in Dublin for more than two days.

Questions over Laudamotion have made front-page headlines in Austria in the past week. Passengers booked on its flight to Dublin on Tuesday morning could read about Austro Control’s decision to step in on the screens broadcasting the latest news and flight times on Vienna’s City-Airport Train.

Austrian newspaper Kurier published extracts from what it described as a leaked crew report from flight OE1342. When pilots tried to contact air traffic control after departure, “we figured out that all stations were able to receive our calls, however we did not get their calls,” the document reads in English. After trying at least 10 frequencies, a mode of radio communication was found for the rest of the flight, it adds. Kurier also published handwritten notes in German purporting to be an in-flight medical report indicating that an Irish passenger had fainted.

Three-time Formula 1 world champion

Laudamotion is one of the aviation ventures developed by the late three-time Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda. Lauda first sold a 25 per cent stake in his low-fares airline to Ryanair in April 2018, rising to 75 per cent in August, and finally 100 per cent in December.

Laudamotion flies Airbus 320 aircraft, different from Ryanair’s own Boeing fleet. From nine before the Ryanair takeover, the Austrian airline has signed new leases to grow its fleet to 23 aircraft today. It is targeting 6 million passengers this year and 10 million by 2022.

Laudamotion is one of the aviation companies developed over the years by Niki Lauda. His career as an airline boss had ups and downs, leading to one of his former ventures, simply called Niki, to come up for sale following the collapse of Air Berlin at the end of 2017. 

Lauda successfully bid for Niki in January 2018 and merged it with a private jet business he had bought in 2016 and recently renamed Laudamotion. Neither was running scheduled flights at the time. Two months later, Ryanair announced that it had agreed to buy 25 per cent of Laudamotion, and increase its stake to 75 per cent pending EU competition approval. The full investment was to be “less than €50 million, although Ryanair will provide an additional €50m for year one start-up and operating costs,” Michael O’Leary’s airline said.

By the end of 2018, Ryanair had taken over the entire capital of Laudamotion, before the former motor racer passed away in May of this year.

The Lufthansa lease

Meanwhile, the European Commission had allowed Lufthansa to take over Air Berlin on the condition that it continued previous arrangement to lease aircraft to Laudamotion. During 2018, Ryanair complained of Lufthansa’s feet-dragging in delivering the aircraft.

But when the new owners received Lufthansa’s invoice, they couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. They wrote in Ryanair’s latest annual report: “Lauda suffered a very difficult first year of operations due to the late delivery of nine, very expensive, lease aircraft from Lufthansa, which meant they released their summer 2018 schedule at very short notice with seats being sold at very low prices, and caused Lauda to lose almost €140 million in its first full year of operation. The team at Lauda, with the support of Ryanair, have now replaced these expensive Lufthansa aircraft with a fleet of 20 lower cost A320 operating leases.”

Ryanair added that it hoped Laudamotion would cut losses this year and break even next year.

Laudamotion flies Airbus 320 aircraft, different from Ryanair’s own Boeing fleet. From nine before the Ryanair takeover, the Austrian airline’s fleet has grown to 23 today. It is targeting 6 million passengers this year and 10 million by 2022.

According to the specialist website Aviation Herald, the Airbus operating flight OE1342 on 25 November with 179 people on board was on its first commercial flight for Laudamotion, following its transfer from Philippines-based low-fares airline Cebu Pacific the previous week.

In October, the pilot’s union Austrian Cockpit Association (ACA) publicly criticised the “increasing pressure” applied by new owners Ryanair on Laudamotion’s staff. According to ACA, management demands to increase flying times and threats to outsource pilots and flight attendants have threatened their health. “The upheaval unsettles employees, which can endanger flight safety,” the union added.

Ryanair has not replied to The Currency’s questions about Laudamotion.

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