Lauda Air Luftfahrt GmbH, branded as Lauda Air, was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

headquartered at

Vienna International Airport Vienna International Airport (german: Flughafen Wien-Schwechat; ) is the international airport of Vienna, the capital of Austria, located in Schwechat, southeast of central Vienna and west of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It is the co ...

Schwechat Schwechat () is a town southeast of Vienna known for the Vienna International Airport and Schwechater beer. The city is home to the refineries of the Austrian national oil company OMV. Geography Schwechat is named after the river Schwechat, whi ...

. It was owned by

Niki Lauda Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in Formula ...

(1949–2019) during much of its existence, later becoming a

charter airline Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a airline ticket, ticket through a traditional airline). Regulation Charter – also called air taxi or ad h ...

subsidiary for leisure operations of

Austrian Airlines Austrian Airlines AG, often shortened to Austrian, is the flag carrier of Austria and a subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group. The airline is headquartered on the grounds of Vienna International Airport in Schwechat where it also maintains its ...

. On 6 April 2013, Lauda Air ceased to exist and was replaced by ''Austrian myHoliday'', a new brand name that is used for flights and leisure offers provided by Austrian Airlines.''Lauda Air''
DIE Press; retrieved .

History

Development as an independent airline

Lauda Air was established in April 1979 by former

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

world motor racing champion

and started operations in 1985, initially operating as a charter and air taxi service. One of the first jetliner types used by Lauda Air was the British Aircraft Corporation

BAC One-Eleven The BAC One-Eleven (or BAC-111/BAC 1-11) was an early jet airliner produced by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Originally conceived by Hunting Aircraft as a 30-seat jet, before its merger into BAC in 1960, it was launched as an 80-se ...

series 500, with these aircraft being leased from the Romanian airline TAROM. It opened its headquarters in the Lauda Air Building in Schwechat, Austria. Scheduled operations were licensed and initiated in 1987, and in 1990 licences for international flights were obtained. In 1989 Lauda started its first long-haul flights from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

and

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

via

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

. In the 1990s, it started to fly its Sydney and Melbourne flights via

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...

and

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

. Daily flights to

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

, and

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

via

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

followed.

Merger with Austrian Airlines

Lauda Air became a wholly owned subsidiary of

in December 2000 and employed thirty-five people as of March 2007. In 2005 the flight operation merged with Austrian Airlines, and the label "Lauda Air" operated charter flights within the Austrian Airlines Group. At an AAG board meeting in November 2006, plans were approved to retire the

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...

wide-bodied fleet by mid-2007 and to operate with just a

Boeing 767 The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...

and

Boeing 777 The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long-range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the world's largest twinjet. The 777 was designed to bridge the gap bet ...

fleet. As a result of subsequent fleet cuts, Austrian Airlines suspended some long-haul services and Lauda Air withdrew from the long-haul charter market over the next year. This led to a refocus on the short/medium-haul market and led to the addition of a 737-800 to take over most of the charter routes. Lauda Air also had an Italian subsidiary, Lauda Air S.p.A., which ended its operations in 2007. Lauda Air was officially merged into Austrian Airlines on 1 July 2012. All aircraft within the group were transferred to

on 1 July 2012, to be able to take advantage of

structure. There are still Lauda liverys in use to this day. The brand was retired at the start of the summer flight schedule on 31 March 2013, and was replaced by "Austrian myHoliday". It is no longer an airline but a branding that is used to sell Austrian Airlines' own leisure offers.

Destinations

Austrian Airlines regularly served, among others, the following destinations under the Lauda Air brand until March 2013:''Lauda Air destinations Summer 2011''
(.

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

article in German); Lauda Air; auto download.

Former destinations

The following destinations were served by Lauda Air as an independent airline prior to their merger into Austrian Airlines:

Fleet

Historic fleet

Lauda Air's historic fleet included the following aircraft during its existence:

Lauda Air Executive

Lauda Air also operated a fleet of three small jets, a

Cessna Citation II The Cessna Citation II are light corporate jets built by Cessna as part of the Citation family. Stretched from the Citation I, the Model 550 was announced in September 1976, first flew on January 31, 1977, and was certified in March 1978. The ...

(9 seats), a Bombardier Lear 60 (7 seats), and a

Dassault Falcon 20 The Dassault Falcon 20 is a French business jet developed and manufactured by Dassault Aviation. The first business jet developed by the firm, it became the first of a family of business jets to be produced under the same name; of these, both ...

(12 seats). These were available for private charter flights.

Incidents and accidents

Lauda Air suffered one fatal accident during its existence: * On 26 May 1991,

Lauda Air Flight 004 Lauda Air Flight 004 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from Bangkok, Thailand, to Vienna, Austria. On May 26, 1991, the Boeing 767-300ER operating the service crashed, following an uncommanded midair deployment of the thru ...

, operated by a

Boeing 767-300ER The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...

registered as OE-LAV, named after ''

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

'', crashed in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

shortly after take-off from

Don Mueang International Airport Don Mueang International Airport ( th, ท่าอากาศยานดอนเมือง, , , or colloquially as , ) is one of two international airports serving the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, the other one being Suvarnabhumi Airp ...

, due to the uncommanded deployment of one of its thrust reversers. This accident resulted in the deaths of all 223 passengers and crew.

References

External links

* (Archive) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lauda Air Defunct airlines of Austria Airlines established in 1979 Airlines disestablished in 2013 2013 disestablishments in Austria Former Star Alliance affiliate members Austrian companies established in 1979