Ryanair has completed the purchase of 100% shareholding in Laudamotion, the Austrian low-fare airline.
Ryanair purchased a 75% shareholding in the carrier in August 2018, but has now completed the purchase of 100% shareholding in the Austrian career.
Laudamotion now becomes a 100% subsidiary of Ryanair Holdings Plc, the group behind Ryanair and is launching a series of growth initiatives, including plans to increase its fleet to 25 aircraft in summer 2019 (up from 19 in summer 2018).
Lauda has also signed Letter of Intent (LOI) agreements with a number of lessors aiming to increase its summer 2020 fleet to 30 aircraft – all Airbus aircraft. This would allow Lauda to grow its traffic from 4 million guests in the first year, to 6 million guests in year 2 (financial year March 2020) to 7.5m guests in FY March 2021.
“With the backing of Ryanair, Laudamotion is set to grow strongly over the next 3 years to carry 10m passengers p.a.” said Laudamotion’s CEO Andreas Gruber.
“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,” he continued.
The airline will operate four bases this summer, growing in Vienna from four to eight aircraft, seven in Dusseldorf, three in Stuttgart and two aircraft in Palma. In winter 2019, the Vienna base will increase further to 11 aircraft.
Laudamotion has released the first part of its winter 2019 flight schedule with increases in frequencies from Vienna in particular. Gruber added that the airline will release the details of up to 20 new routes for winter 2019 once airport and handling negotiations have been successfully completed.
The airline has also announced details of up to 400 new jobs for pilots, cabin crew, and engineers across its four bases, as well as unveiling details of its new head office (at Concorde Business Park) which it will move into in March 2019.
