Ex-motor racing champion Niki Lauda is looking to work with Thomas Cook Airlines after winning a bidding war for the NIKI airline he founded.
A previously agreed sale of the Austrian low cost carrier to British Airways owner International Airlines Group fell through after two courts ruled the insolvency proceedings had to move to Austria from Germany.
Lauda was then able to convince the insolvent carrier’s administrators to do a deal with him instead.
Creditors of NIKI – most recently part of failed German airline Air Berlin – met on Monday to pick the best bid, and their meeting ran past midnight.
NIKI’s Austrian and German administrators, Ulla Reisch and Lucas Floether, said the best bidder had emerged from a transparent bidding process.
No purchase price was disclosed for the deal put forward by the former Formula One racing champion’s Laudamotion business. Legal approval for the transaction is expected to follow soon.
Lauda plans to scrap the Niki brand and to integrate the carrier into Laudamotion.
The racing driver-turned-businessman said that he wanted to work with a partner such as Thomas Cook Airlines on sales, crew planning and marketing.
“I need an operational partner in order to fly in March, for example for crew planning and sales,” Lauda told Austrian media at the weekend.
He said that he had 15 aircraft and would bring them into operation by the end of March, to focus on holiday destinations in Turkey, Greece and Spain. NIKI aircraft will have about 1,700 slots, or about 0.8% of available slots in Austria, for the summer season.
Lauda, who founded NIKI in 2003 but sold his remaining stake to Air Berlin in 2011, told Austrian broadcaster Oe24: “Of course, I am delighted. There’s no doubt that I have always put my heart and soul into Niki.”
The 68-year-old moved into the airline industry as his driving career was coming to an end in the 1980s.
IAG was it was “disappointed that NIKI will not be able to develop and grow stronger as part of the group”.