Lauda Air will become the first carrier to establish a hub outside its home base using seventh freedom rights available under the European third package, backed by its alliance with Lufthansa.
At press time, the Austrian independent was set to start a stand alone scheduled operation out of Milan/Malpensa from the end of March. It will codeshare with German major Lufthansa, which owns 39.7 per cent of Lauda and will offer sales and marketing support.
The Malpensa operation includes elements of the joint venture regional carrier which Lauda proposed with Lufthansa in late 1993. Lauda will use three Canadair Regional Jets to fly to Paris/Charles de Gaulle, Brussels, Manchester, Vienna, Barcelona and Dublin. The Italian airport is already home to Lauda's charter subsidiary Lauda Air Italia.
The Milan-Manchester route will also strengthen the northern UK hub which Lufthansa is building up around its alliances with Lauda, Luxair and UK regional carrier Business Air. While on Milan-Vienna, the carrier expects 50 per cent of the traffic to feed onto Lauda's longhaul operations to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney.
Lauda Air intends to switch its Paris flights to Orly when slots become available and is currently negotiating traffic rights to Malta from Milan.
Establishing a hub in Italy's business heartland is a logical progression for Lauda Air says Wolfgang Grinus, head of route development. 'Last April we started to build up the European network from Vienna and strengthened our position in Austria with a second hub at Salzburg, and the third step was Milan,' he says.
Source: Airline Business
