Budget airline Ryanair has taken full control of Laudamotion, an Austrian-based carrier set up by former Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda.

Laudamotion said Tuesday that Ryanair completed the purchase of 100 percent of the shares in the new airline in late December. It didn’t give financial details. Ryanair had taken an initial 24.9 percent stake in March and later increased that to 75 percent.

The Austria Press Agency reported that Laudamotion CEO Andreas Gruber told a news conference at Vienna Airport that Lauda will continue to provide “input” to the airline after he sold his remaining stake.
Laudamotion said that it will now expand its fleet and recruit more pilots, cabin crew and engineers. It plans to open new routes from its bases in Vienna, Stuttgart, Duesseldorf and Palma.

With the support of Ryanair Holdings, Laudamotion today announces a series of exciting growth initiatives, which includes:

• Increasing Lauda’s fleet to 25 aircraft in summer ’19 (from 19 in S2018). Lauda today announces that it has signed LOI agreements with a number of lessors which will increase its Summer ’20 fleet to 30 – all Airbus – aircraft, which will allow Lauda to grow its traffic from 4m guests in year 1 to 6m guests in year 2 (FY March 2020) to 7.5m guests in FY March 2021.
• This summer, Laudamotion will operate 4 bases as it grows in Vienna from 4 to 8 aircraft, Dusseldorf 7 aircraft, Stuttgart 3 aircraft, and Palma 2 aircraft. In winter 2019, the Vienna base will increase further to 11 aircraft, making Laudamotion Vienna’s No.2 airline, just behind Austrian Airlines. Laudamotion is releasing the first part of its winter 2019 flight schedules today, offering passengers lower fares and more frequencies, from Vienna in particular. Details of up to 20 new routes from Vienna, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, and Palma, will be announced in the next month or two once airport and handling negotiations have been successfully completed.
• Laudamotion today announced details of up to 400 new jobs for pilots, cabin crew, and engineers across its 4 bases. It also unveiled details of its new Head Office (at Concorde Business Park), which it will move into in March 2019, and released details of a 250,000 seat sale with fares starting from €19.99 one way for travel in Feb, Mar, Apr and May from Vienna, Stuttgart, and Dusseldorf bases.

Speaking in Vienna today, Laudamotion’s CEO, Andreas Gruber, said:

“With the backing of Ryanair, Laudamotion is set to grow strongly over the next 3 years to carry 10m passengers p.a. We will release details of up to 20 new routes for winter 2019 once we have completed our airport and handling negotiations by the end of March. 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, as we continue to offer our customers in Vienna, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and Palma the lowest air fares on a fleet of young Airbus aircraft with widespread passenger appeal and great Lauda service.”