Lauda Air

Red titles, red tail, and a silver-gray belly underneath: anyone standing at Vienna-Schwechat in the 1990s and 2000s recognized Lauda Air aircraft instantly. The airline of Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda was more than a leisure carrier for Austria. It flew Boeing widebodies to Asia and Australia, challenged the then state-owned airline and in the end was absorbed by it anyway. This page sums up how Lauda Air came to be, which aircraft it flew, what happened on Flight 004 and how you can reliably identify the aircraft in old photos.

Lauda Air at a glance

Lauda Air was an Austrian airline based at Vienna-Schwechat Airport. It was founded by Niki Lauda on April 4, 1979 – by then already a two-time Formula 1 world champion. The starting capital was 15 million schillings; 51 percent was held by Lauda Air GmbH, 49 percent by the Viennese travel agency ITAS. To be able to fly quickly, Lauda took over the charter license of Alpair.

Over a good three decades the airline changed several times: from a small charter operation through a scheduled airline with long-haul flights to a pure leisure brand under the umbrella of Austrian Airlines. From 2004/2005 there were no separate flight operations any more, and with the 2013 summer schedule the name disappeared too.

The history in stages

The start was bumpy. Lauda began operations on May 24, 1979 with two used Fokker F27s, later joined by a third aircraft leased from France. The small airline could not hold its own against the strong position of state-owned Austrian Airlines, however. Two of the F27s were leased to EgyptAir, and at the beginning of 1983 flight operations with the turboprop ended.

The second attempt from 1985 worked better. The cooperation with ITAS filled the charter flights, and with the Boeing 737 Lauda Air quickly had a modern short- and medium-haul aircraft. Catering was handled by the Viennese caterer Do & Co – a detail that suited the brand: Lauda Air wanted to stand out from the competition through service.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code NG: appeared in the flight number, that is on tickets and departure boards.
• ICAO code LDA: appeared in the flight plan filed with air traffic control.
• Callsign LAUDA AIR: how the crew identified itself on the radio.

After the integration into Austrian this changed. Flights sold under the Lauda Air brand were operated by Austrian with its own codes – that is OS in the flight number and AUA or “AUSTRIAN” on the radio. If you find a Lauda Air sighting with an OS flight number in old logbooks, that is therefore not a mistake.

Long-haul from Vienna: Asia, Australia, America

What set Lauda Air apart from an ordinary leisure airline was long-haul. With the Boeing 767-300ER the airline flew from Vienna to Bangkok, Hong Kong and Sydney, and in late October 1991 Melbourne was added. For a country without a large long-haul network of its own, a service to Australia was a remarkable offering. In the 1990s the Australia flights at times also went via Kuala Lumpur and Bali, and in 2001 Lauda Air offered five weekly connections to Australia.

A second axis emerged with Lufthansa. In autumn 1990, the Lufthansa subsidiary Condor took about a quarter of the shares. In cooperation with Lufthansa, Lauda Air flew three times a week via Munich to Miami from December 1992, and from March 1993 also four times a week to Los Angeles. In 1993 Lauda also set up the Italian holding Lauda Air Italy, which flew a 767-300ER from Milan to the Caribbean.

In Europe, Lauda Air relied on regional jets from 1994. The Canadair Regional Jets flew to Scandinavia, among other places; the European network also included destinations such as Barcelona, Madrid and Manchester. On top of that came the classic leisure program to the Mediterranean, which remained the core of the brand to the end. Besides Vienna, departure airports also included Graz, Linz, Innsbruck and Salzburg.

The Lauda Air fleet

After the Fokker and BAC chapter, Lauda Air was an almost pure Boeing airline. The following overview shows the most important types; the numbers are totals over the years, not the fleet on a given date.

Type	Period	Number	Use	Spotter note
Fokker F27	1979–1983	2, later 3	Charter	High-wing turboprop of the early years
BAC One-Eleven	1985–1986	2	Charter	Short interlude, leased
Boeing 737 (‑200 to ‑800)	Mid-1980s–2012	around 20	Charter and Europe	12 aircraft went to Austrian
Boeing 767-300ER	1989–2007	11	Long-haul	6 aircraft went to Austrian
Boeing 777-200ER	1997–2005	3	Long-haul	All three went to Austrian
Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ100)	1994–2004	10–12	Europe	Later with Austrian Arrows

With the 737, Lauda Air covered almost the entire history of the type: from the leased 737-200 and the 737-300 through the 737-400 to the Next Generation 737-600, 737-700 and 737-800. How to tell the generations apart is shown in the guide to the 737 generations. The CRJ100 is closely related to the CRJ200 and is hardly distinguishable from it externally; the manufacturer is Bombardier.

Some aircraft carried the names of famous personalities. Documented examples include the 767-300ER OE-LAV “Mozart” and a 767-300ER named “Frank Sinatra”, which set off on a twelve-day round-the-world flight on August 30, 1999 – with stops in Frankfurt, Bangkok, Sydney, Honolulu and Los Angeles.

Flight 004: the crash in Thailand

On the evening of May 26, 1991, the Boeing 767-300ER OE-LAV “Mozart” took off at 11:02 p.m. local time from Bangkok-Don Mueang. It was Flight 004 from Hong Kong via Bangkok to Vienna, with 213 passengers and 10 crew members on board. The aircraft had been delivered new in October 1989 and was powered by Pratt & Whitney engines.

About a quarter of an hour after takeoff, in the climb at around 24,700 feet, the thrust reverser of the left engine deployed without the crew having activated it. The one-sided redirected thrust put the aircraft out of control within a short time; it entered a stall and broke apart in the air. The wreckage came down in a remote forest area in Suphan Buri Province northwest of Bangkok. Nobody survived.

The investigation was led by the Thai accident investigation commission. It concluded that the unintentionally deployed thrust reverser was the cause. What exactly triggered it could not be conclusively established – the flight data recorder had been destroyed by the fire, and the investigators relied mainly on the cockpit voice recorder. Among the possibilities discussed were a fault in the hydraulic valve system and damaged wiring.

Niki Lauda himself traveled to Thailand, inspected the crash site and tested the scenario in a simulator. He pushed to clarify the cause publicly instead of looking for it with the crew. The accident had consequences for Boeing: as early as August 1991 the manufacturer informed operators of aircraft with similar systems, and later valves were replaced and additional locks installed. Flight 004 remains the accident with the most fatalities involving a Boeing 767 and the deadliest air accident in Thailand. In Suphan Buri Province a cemetery commemorates the victims, where unidentified dead are also buried.

Austrian takes over: the long end

After the accident things first kept going up – new routes, regional jets, the 777 from 1997. At the same time the ownership structure changed. By September 1994 Lufthansa’s stake had risen to just under 40 percent. On March 12, 1997, Austrian Airlines, Lauda Air and Lufthansa announced a strategic partnership: afterward Austrian held 36 percent, Niki Lauda 30 percent and Lufthansa 20 percent.

Around the year 2000 Lauda Air came under financial pressure. Niki Lauda stepped down from the board on November 21, 2000, Austrian raised its stake and took over the airline completely. Lauda himself left the company and later bought the Austrian subsidiary of the insolvent Aero Lloyd – from which the new airline Niki emerged at the end of 2003.

For Austrian the takeover brought a unified long-haul fleet. In 2004/2005 Lauda’s flight operations were transferred into the Austrian operation. From then on the Boeing 767s and 777s flew long-haul in Austrian livery, while in the following years Austrian parted with its own Airbus widebodies. Lauda Air lived on as a brand for vacation and charter flights, from 2007 with the addition “The Austrian Way to Holidays”. For these flights Lauda Air drew on the entire fleet of the Austrian group – for example regional aircraft of Austrian Arrows, the brand of Tyrolean.

From 2010 the former Lauda 737s also flew in Austrian scheduled service. In 2011 only one aircraft, the 737-800 OE-LNK, still wore the Lauda Air colors – mainly to preserve the air operator certificate. At the end of May 2012 Austrian announced that it would drop the brand. With the 2013 summer schedule, Lauda Air was finally replaced by Austrian myHoliday. The group behind it is now part of the Lufthansa Group; Austrian itself belongs to the Star Alliance.

How to recognize Lauda Air

The best-known livery is quickly described: white upper fuselage, silver-gray belly and a thin red cheatline in between. Up front on the fuselage are the bold red “Lauda” titles with a stylized L. The tail is red and carries white diagonal lines that together form a sort of arrow. In the late years the addition “The Austrian way to holidays” was placed below the titles.

Austrian registrations begin with OE-, for airliners usually with OE-L. The Lauda Boeings followed recognizable series: OE-LA. for the 767 (such as OE-LAE or OE-LAV), OE-LP. for the 777 (such as OE-LPC) and OE-LN. for the 737-800 (such as OE-LNJ and OE-LNK). How the Austrian system is structured is explained in the article on OE registrations.

Common mix-ups

• Confusing Lauda Air with Niki – Niki was a separate airline that Niki Lauda founded anew in 2003. It wore a completely different design.
• Equating Lauda Air with Lauda Europe – Lauda Europe is a Maltese company of the Ryanair Group with Airbus A320s, even though it uses the ICAO code LDA.
• Swapping the 767 and 777 – the 777 has six wheels per main gear and much larger engines. More in the guide on telling the 757 and 767 apart and in the comparison of the 777 and 787.
• Seeing an OS flight number as an error – after the integration, Lauda Air flights ran under Austrian codes.
• Trying to separate the CRJ100 and CRJ200 – from the outside the two versions are practically indistinguishable.

Lauda Air in everyday spotting today

For your logbook, Lauda Air is mainly an archive topic. If you photographed in Vienna, at an Austrian regional airport or at a vacation destination between the mid-1980s and 2011, you have a good chance of having Lauda Air pictures. The last aircraft in Lauda colors, OE-LNK, disappeared with the end of the brand.

The trail at Austrian remains exciting. The three 777-200ERs and six of the 767-300ERs from the Lauda fleet went to Austrian and flew long-haul there for many years. According to the trade press, the last Austrian 767 flies only until the end of 2026 – so if you want to see the Lauda heirlooms still in service, you need to hurry. Whether a particular registration is still flying is best checked shortly before your visit; the guide How old is this aircraft? helps you trace previous operators via the serial number.

The best place for that is Vienna Airport. The observation deck and the spotters’ hill offer good views of the long-haul departures. How to plan your day in Schwechat is shown in the guide Plane spotting in Vienna-Schwechat.

If you sort your pictures by livery, a separate folder for historic liveries is worthwhile. Tips for that are given in the article Collecting and documenting special liveries. And if you want to follow the history of Austrian aviation further, the entry on Austrian Airlines covers the current fleet including the last Boeings from the Lauda era.

Conclusion

Lauda Air was the airline of a racing driver who took on the state airline – and in the end supplied it with long-haul Boeings. Between 1979 and 2013 the story ran from two used turboprops through flights to Australia to a leisure brand within the Austrian group. Flight 004 remains a dark chapter that changed the safety of the Boeing 767. For spotters, Lauda Air today is a matter of archives and registration research.