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September 11, 2020

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September 11, 2020

Laudamotion fires almost all office workers

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 21:04

On Friday, the Austrian airline Laudamotion GmbH dismissed almost all of the remaining staff in the office in Schwechat. An early registration had previously been made with the employment service. At the end of June 2020, the site was already being swept around with the proverbial iron broom and the press office was even dismissed. The Lauda management has been in hiding for a few days and did not want to comment on the first flight of the successor airline Lauda Europe Ltd. Numerous tasks that were previously carried out in Vienna will in future be carried out by Ryanair in Dublin and Malta Air in Birkirkara. The Polish sister company Buzz has been carrying out crew contact from Warsaw for a few weeks. Only a small team is to remain in Vienna, which will act as a kind of "extended station management". The Nominated Persons of Lauda Europe Ltd. are definitely not affected by the dismissals. They are needed in any case for legal reasons. According to reports, the Maltese successor needs a few current Laudamotion administrative employees. They are to be offered a new job. It is also unclear whether the job will have to be done from Vienna or in Birkirkara. Lauda is currently in the process of transforming itself from Laudamotion GmbH to Lauda Europe Ltd. After this process is complete, the Austrian company will be closed and only the Maltese company, which carried out its first scheduled flight on Friday, will continue to operate. The aircraft's paintwork will remain the same. Only the Austrian national emblem has been replaced by a Maltese one. In future, registrations will no longer begin with OE-, but with 9H. Laudamotion managing director Andreas Gruber is also keeping quiet about his own future.

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Lauda Europe operated the first scheduled flight

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 19:48

The airline Lauda Europe Ltd. operated its first commercial scheduled flight on Friday. The Maltese airline is the successor to Laudamotion GmbH, which is to be closed, and flew the inaugural flight on the Palma de Mallorca-Bournemouth route. The carrier flies on behalf of the parent company Ryanair. The 9H-LMG was used, which previously flew under the registration OE-LMG with Laudamotion. From September 15, 2020, the Vienna base will be gradually converted to the Maltese airline Lauda Europe Ltd. Numerous aircraft have already been transferred from the Austrian to the Maltese register. Once this process is completed, the Austrian Laudamotion will be closed. Lauda Europe will act as the successor. Transport Malta issued the operating license and the AOC (MT-62) a few days ago. The three-letter code is LDA. The two-letter code is LW. The fleet consists of Airbus A320s, which are being taken over from the predecessor Laudamotion GmbH. The company's managing director is the current Laudamotion boss and Ryanair board member David O'Brien, who also acts as accountable manager. Flights are primarily operated on behalf of Ryanair, so their flight numbers are mostly used.

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This is Michael O'Leary's power center in Malta

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 13:51

Surrounded by construction sites on both sides, Michael O'Leary's outsourced power center is located in Birkirkara, the largest municipality in the Republic of Malta. The Centris Business Gateway, as the office complex is called, is home to the Nominated Persons of Malta Air and now also of Lauda Europe. As Malta Air's fleet is constantly growing, one might expect a huge building. But that is not the case, as the two Ryanair subsidiaries only use one floor of the complex. The actual decisions are of course made by Michael O'Leary and the managers who report to him. Not surprisingly, they are mostly made in Dublin. However, Malta Air's flight operations are controlled from Birkirkara. The same will soon be done from here for Lauda Europe too. There are also regulatory reasons for this, as certain officials must have their place of work at the official headquarters of the respective airline. Lauda Europe has now been given everything it needs by Transport Malta to be allowed to fly commercially. The operating license and the AOC (number: MT-62) are of course already in the bag. The three-letter code is LDA, by the way. The carrier's Internet address is no longer laudamotion.com, but laudaeur.com. A separate homepage has not yet been loaded. In the next few weeks, the entire Laudamotion flight operations are to be taken over by Lauda Europe. In the meantime, company boss David O'Brien also informed the German workforce that the Stuttgart base will be closed on September 30, 2020 - and thus earlier than originally announced. The base in Düsseldorf, which was actually considered "saved", will be closed on October 24, 2020. The positions are to be filled by

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VC wants to move into the TUI supervisory board

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 13:36

The pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit wants to secure more influence on the supervisory board of Tui AG. To this end, it is putting forward its own candidates who are running for the employee seats on the group's supervisory board. "Verein Cockpit has a clear message: Only with the solidarity of all employees in the TUI Group can we successfully advocate for protection against redundancies and for prospects," says Tanja Viehl, the top candidate on the union's list. "The Group's Executive Board must focus equally on customers, shareholders and employees in order to set the course for growth after the Covid crisis as the world market leader in the tourism industry. The federal loans are also an obligation to preserve jobs. Tax money must not be used to finance job cuts."

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Wizzair announces Dortmund-Porto

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 13:32

The Hungarian low-cost airline Wizzair is offering a non-stop connection between Dortmund and Porto from December 13, 2020. The carrier has had its first base in Germany at this German airport for several weeks. "We are thrilled to be able to add another long-awaited route to the Dortmund flight schedule," says Andras Rado, Wizz Air press spokesman. "We deliver what our customers love about Wizz Air - more local jobs, another necessary connection for the region and ultra-low prices. These are more reasons than ever to say yes to a flight from Dortmund!" Wizzair flies in Germany from Cologne, Dortmund, Frankfurt Hahn, Hamburg, Memmingen, Nuremberg, Friedrichshafen, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Berlin, Hanover, Frankfurt, Bremen and Leipzig.

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Vienna: Wizzair is “secretly” reducing its offer

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 10:24

The low-cost airline Wizzair was the first airline to expand its offering at Vienna-Schwechat Airport. Initially, there were setbacks due to the official flight bans that were still in place at the time. Summer business was not that bad given the circumstances. But now Wizzair has to scale back again. A look at the Hungarian carrier's reservation system shows that the offering from Vienna had to be revised on a very large scale. The frequencies have been considerably reduced in some cases and classic summer routes are going into the winter break earlier this year. Many routes have also fallen victim to the Corona pandemic or are being discontinued due to low demand combined with strong competitive pressure. Wizzair and Ryanair in particular sought direct confrontation in 2019 and 2020 and "doubled" many routes. Wizzair, for example, will withdraw from the Vienna-Luqa route on September 26, 2020. This was actually one of the best routes from Austria, but the low demand and competition from Air Malta and Ryanair may have had a massive negative impact on demand. But this is not an isolated case. It is to be expected that Wizzair and many other airlines will revise and adapt their plans for winter 2020/21 several times.

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Eurowings boss bishop criticizes 5 euro tickets

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 10:17

Ryanair and other low-cost airlines are currently putting a large number of single-digit euro tickets on the market. Eurowings boss Jens Bischof does not agree with this, however. He even believes that ultra-low-cost is "out". The manager criticized the current pricing policy of Ryanair and other low-cost airlines in an interview with FVW. Customers now have different preferences and the rush for the cheapest ticket is no longer in demand. However, Eurowings is also trying out discount campaigns. For example, it offers price reductions based on the temperature of the destination. These can be quite significant, which is very likely due to the currently subdued demand.

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Court: Eurowings has to reimburse passengers directly

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 10:11

In particular, passengers who booked their cancelled flights not directly with the airline but through one of the many booking portals are currently at the mercy of a massive ping-pong game of responsibilities. The NRW Consumer Advice Center has now obtained an injunction against Eurowings, among others, which is intended to put an end to the "games" at the expense of consumers. The result of this is that Eurowings and some other airlines are currently prohibited by law from making refunds via the booking portals. These must be paid directly to the end customer. The background to this is precisely the ping-pong games, because the airline refers to the agent and the agent refers to the airline. There are also allegedly cases in which the airline is said to have refunded the portal, but the portal is alleged to have not passed the money on to the passenger. In recent weeks and months, such reports have been piling up. At Eurowings, this has now been put to a stop, because due to the injunction, payments can temporarily only be made directly to the customer. Unfortunately, the affected passengers cannot expect the refund they are entitled to to be sent any faster, as Eurowings must now first research the contact details. Many booking portals do not forward these to the airline.

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Germany ends global travel warning

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 09:55

On September 30, 2020, the Federal Republic of Germany will end the previously practiced system of "worldwide travel warning with exceptions". However, in practice, not much will change for travelers from October 1, 2020. Germany wants to take a more differentiated approach in the future, but this will leave the entry regulations of the destination countries untouched. In concrete terms, this means that the Federal Republic could lift the warning for country X, but this country will continue to practice strict entry regulations and even bans. For example, Hungary closed its borders with minimal lead time. Germany has no travel warning for this country. The Foreign Office announced that from October 1, 2020, the warnings will be issued specifically for individual states, regions and cities. Those that exceed the Robert Koch Institute's limit values ​​will be given warnings. The aim is to maintain a "sense of proportion". Given the current rise in infection rates worldwide, no great relief for passengers is to be expected.

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AUA faces “ten difficult months”

Jan Gruber September 11, 2020 09:42

Things are not going well in the aviation industry at the moment, but poorly. Advance bookings for autumn, the 2020/21 winter flight schedule and even summer 2021 are extremely low. The Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines cannot escape this trend either. Immediately after the "comeback", demand was higher than expected, but the developments of the last few weeks in Europe are now also affecting AUA. The airline is flying below its business plan and there is no prospect of short-term improvement. Chief Financial Officer Andreas Otto explained to the workforce that they had planned conservatively and are therefore just about on schedule. However, he warned that Austrian Airlines is now flying into ten "extremely difficult months". Advance bookings for spring and summer 2021 in particular are "extremely cautious". The bottom line is that the carrier is currently "below expectations", writes the daily newspaper "Kurier". The company's liquidity is said to be very good at the moment - thanks to the generous state aid. The vast majority of the workforce is still on short-time work. A huge number of aircraft are still not being used. The company estimates the current capacity at around “30 to 40 percent below the previous year”. Travel restrictions and, in particular, sometimes complicated quarantine regulations are currently making life difficult for all European airlines. Since the nation states are not acting in a coordinated manner, but rather at short notice and on their own, the regulations change very frequently. This has a negative impact on demand and means that anyone who really wants or needs to travel is buying their ticket at short notice. The low-cost airlines in particular are throwing away an enormous number of tickets, some of them

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