Niki "Nazionale" Lauda has not had enough of the aviation business and has now bought the Austrian bizjet operator Amira Air.

Who will start taking bets if he will rename it and how?   And how long before he will start a real airline based on Amira?

http://slovakaviation.sk/en/news/526...a-is-back-in-the-aviation-business

If you pay the right price, you can get Niki Lauda to fly you personally.   

Fine by me! Can he fly me LCA-VIE-DUS next month on the 8th on Niki?

Quoting marosbts (Thread starter): Niki "Nazionale" Lauda has not had enough of the aviation business and has now bought the Austrian bizjet operator Amira Air. Who will start taking bets if he will rename it and how?

Would be great if he could use a Bac 1-11 again  
View Large View Medium

Photo © Markus Buttinger

Quoting AWACSooner (Reply 2): Fine by me! Can he fly me LCA-VIE-DUS next month on the 8th on Niki?

Yeah, sure. You just need to ad a zero or better two to your ticket price, then perhaps it will be enough for that kind of routing.

And who knows, for flights with Lauda personally you might need to pay extra. It is an inovative new ancillary revenue idea and will be called Celebrity surcharge.

Quoting N14AZ (Reply 3): Would be great if he could use a Bac 1-11 again

Or the 737-600...    ...

View Large View Medium Photo © Jean-Charles Sautaux

View Large View Medium Photo © Kevin Schlünkes

Quoting marosbts (Reply 4): And who knows, for flights with Lauda personally you might need to pay extra. It is an inovative new ancillary revenue idea and will be called Celebrity surcharge.

Would that involve racetrack maneuvers?   

"Amira" has a nice ring to it, some hybrid between EY and EK   Darwin Air aka EY Regional better take notice. A couple of islands next to Michael Schumacher Island still need a name, food for thought for Niki down the line if he's successful enough as he was with HG, I'm sure he can deal with EY directly this time without going through AB as an intermediary.

Quoting Devilfish (Reply 5): Or the 737-600...

Now *that* would have been a great livery for MyAustrian / MyHoliday / MyImperialCity / MyWhyistherealwaysaMyinfrontofMyname ?

Quoting N14AZ (Reply 3): Would be great if he could use a Bac 1-11 again

Quoting Devilfish (Reply 5): Would that involve racetrack maneuvers?

Maybe he can get together with John Travolta on that 707 and John can do an improv of Grease while Niki is trying a 35 degree bank angle or trying to test out how fast he can get to FL340  

Lauda luck this time.

I wish him good luck  

Quoting UTAH744 (Reply 7): Lauda luck this time.

Quoting lancelot07 (Reply 8): I wish him good luck

The subtext of your comments kind of reads like Lauda did not have luck with his last two companies. But AFAIK he sold Lauda Air and Niki for a lot of money to OS and AB and made money with these airlines; opposed to popular believe that you can only loose money when entering the airline business.

Quoting CARST (Reply 9): The subtext of your comments kind of reads like Lauda did not have luck with his last two companies. But AFAIK he sold Lauda Air and Niki for a lot of money to OS and AB and made money with these airlines; opposed to popular believe that you can only loose money when entering the airline business.

While what you write is technically true, there are allegedly not so nice details to this. To wit, it has been claimed that the sale of Lauda Air to OS would never have happened, if the man did not have such excellent political connections within Austria. In particular, it has been claimed that OS was not particularly happy with the deal at the time, which would say quite a lot about the whole thing.

Or in other words: if you can ask your socialist (!) cronies to force the (then) state-owned flag carrier airline to buy your company if things get rough, it is hardly surprising that you can make money even off selling an (at the time) mediocrely run airline. Note that I'm not saying the *product* of the airline was bad: back then, Lauda Air was certainly not a bad experience for the customers. Rather, there were allegedly issues with the financial health of the outfit, fleet management (no two ships alike, as he liked to buy them whenever he got a good deal on second hand frames), and with the maintenance regime of the aircraft.

But on the other hand, all this might be over-blown. But I knew people who worked for OS at the time of the merger, and they certainly were livid about it, back then. Apparently, no-one at OS (except the politically appointed top management) saw the point of adding the Lauda a/c to the fleet at the time.

Time will tell whether he manages better this time. Third time lucky is what they say, right?  

Quoting aw70 (Reply 10): To wit, it has been claimed that the sale of Lauda Air to OS would never have happened, if the man did not have such excellent political connections within Austria.

"It has been claimed" reads for me like "i read it on the internet, it must be true". When I look at the major mergers within the airline industry in Europe and the USA the Lauda and Austrian merger was one of the very logical ones. Such a small country with two airlines? Not viable. Overall Europe had way too much airlines when the countries gave up protecting their airlines and started the deregulation. The formation of IAG, AF-KL and LH Group are more than logical IMO as a lot of competition remains, either by major airlines not within these groups or by LCCs and startups. The market just had to consolidate after dereg. and merging Lauda into OS was just an early start to this merger game.

Of course there are mergers which are bad to the customer, see the forming of the US3, which kind of eliminated competition in a lot of markets in a country of 320 million people. Compare the numbers of airlines in Europe and the US.

Quoting aw70 (Reply 10): Apparently, no-one at OS (except the politically appointed top management) saw the point of adding the Lauda a/c to the fleet at the time.

That the management was politically appointed must have not been the reason no one else in the company saw the need for this merger. For me this looks more like a classical management error, which happens all over the world again and again, when a management is not able to make their employees aware of the need for certain decisions and show them the advantages.

Quoting aw70 (Reply 10): fleet management (no two ships alike, as he liked to buy them whenever he got a good deal on second hand frames),

No one is blaiming DL for picking up old aircraft on the market. Even today most start-ups or smaller airlines grow by buying used equipment. You have some higher cost operating it, but the aquisition costs might be so cheap that the total cost of ownership ("TCO", that what really counts) are still lower than buying new.


That Lauda and his investors easily got the money from the banks when starting his next airline (Niki) shows that the banks had a lot of trust and confidence in this man (and his team back then) that he would form another profitable airline (and perhaps sell it with a profit later on (which he did to AB).

Wish him the best of luck with his latest business venture... Hopefully he brings back the stunning Lauda Air livery / brand  

EK413

I suppose since he and Toto are allegedly at loggerheads he needs another job lined up just in case....

Quoting CARST (Reply 11): "It has been claimed" reads for me like "i read it on the internet, it must be true".

Let's just say that Austria is a small country. You don't need the internet for stories to make the rounds. And if one knows people who actually worked there, who pretty much all tell the same story, it does give certain rumours some credence. That having been said, this of course does not guarantee that said stories are in fact substantially more credible than what you would find on the internet. Even within companies, the grapevine can be way off at times.

And then, it can also be spot on. Who knows.

In any case, Austria unfortunately has a long and sad tradition of incompetent political meddling in state-owned enterprises. As well as a long tradition of those with political connections being able to do things that no one else could. There is a reason for the saying "the Balkans start in Vienna". Meaning that it would have surprised no one if Important People had actually had a word with OS management, back then, to do a Good Friend a Favour. That sort of disgusting thing went on all the time, and still does.

But I agree with you that OS certainly was not unhappy to get rid of a local competitor. Basically, a merger made sense: the main thing that was seen as problematic was the price of the transaction. Which was allegedly way too high, given the state of DL at the time, and was only possible due to OS allegedly being forced to pay that much.

Quoting ap305 (Reply 13): I suppose since he and Toto are allegedly at loggerheads he needs another job lined up just in case....

Lol not to mention Toto seems to be backed by the Merc board.

I wonder who'll chauffeur the diva to races and back to Monaco now that Niki has a 'real' job.

Niki Lauda is not owner of Nikki anymore?

Has Niki ever mademoney in the airline business?

Quoting LPSHobby (Reply 16): Niki Lauda is not owner of Nikki anymore?

Air Berlin are.

Quoting aw70 (Reply 10): While what you write is technically true, there are allegedly not so nice details to this. To wit, it has been claimed that the sale of Lauda Air to OS would never have happened, if the man did not have such excellent political connections within Austria. In particular, it has been claimed that OS was not particularly happy with the deal at the time, which would say quite a lot about the whole thing.

OS had to buy out competition. Lauda Air was a publicly traded company, and Lufthansa had a significant stake in it.
Of course, Lauda Air without the political connections and the popularity of Mr. Lauda never could have taken off in the first place.

his airline is going to be called "thrustreversAIR"

austrians will understand the joke - and are entitled to laugh about it, since their tax money was often used for lauda air feat austrian feat tyrolean feat operated by all of those and then sold for a euro plus a few million on top (for free) as a present for LH.

Unfortunately this is no joke anymore!
Only the unknowing passengers might be pleased by thie news.
All those in the business are sad for Amira and their employees; what has been fine so far.
will be taken away, and anything in need of improvement will worsen and everything horrible will become the norm.
Don´t you get it; he´s like MOL: a snoot like a crocodile and all power in the tail; and for the rest, you get it.
His role in the tragic loss of OE-LAV "Mozart" is still debated, as he recently admitted, he sold Lauda Air to Austrian, when
he got some money for all the debt amassed, and he sold FlyNiki, when he could foresee, he would loose his licence as
Captain, as his Flight Doc was retiring (after all he is the ONLY captain on an airline with FOUR kidneys in his body) and
he had an offer as Head of Board at Mercedes F1 Racing.
The professionals defy him and only the broad public and the boulevard press adores him.
To write down my opinion about him would breach rules of politeness and professionalism.