Condor To End Laudamotion Bookings This Month

German leisure airline Condor will end its brief partnership with newly launched Laudamotion at the end of the month after Ryanair agreed to take a controlling stake in the Austrian carrier.

Condor and Niki Lauda-owned Laudamotion agreed in February a ticket sales and support agreement to allow the fledgling airline a March launch after it was acquired from the administrators of Air Berlin which failed last year. That all changed in March with news of Ryanair’s acquisition of up to 75 percent of Laudamotion.

Condor said in a statement it will continue to sell Laudamotion flights from Basel, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Vienna and Zurich until the end of April. It will also continue to provide technology for Laudamotion’s website and other distribution systems, plus sales support in Austria, Germany and Switzerland until then.

Operational functions provided by Condor, including traffic control, flight preparation and crew planning, will be handed over to Laudamotion “in the next few months.”

Condor is owned by Thomas Cook, and the group’s chief airline officer Christoph Debus said the German airline “will concentrate on the growth of Condor / Thomas Cook Group Airline,” after the split.

Passengers who booked Laudamotion flights via Condor for departures after April 30 will be contacted directly over the next few days, Condor said.

Laudamotion flights are already available to book on Ryanair’s website.