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Comment by Mediterraneo10 | Hacker News Reader

Funny that nearly the first comment on this thread dealt not with Lauda’s Formula 1 career but his airline ventures. He really must be more widely known for that now.

I’m not a sports fan, and I learned who Lauda is by seeing the words "Fly Niki" plastered all over Air Berlin cabins, as Lauda’s airline established a partnership with Air Berlin. (Of course, Air Berlin itself is now defunct.) "Niki" seemed an odd name for an airline, which led me to Wikipedia the company and thus discover that there was a Formula 1 star behind it.

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I don't think it is, because he is more widely known for his airline, but for the fact that this episode tells so much about him as a person. He was a perfectionist, very focussed on technical excellence, especially on safety. That his airline would suffer such a tragical crash came as a shock to many and it is very fitting how he pushed to find the technical failure that led to the crash.

Lauda and Jackie Stewart were pioneers of motorsport safety. F1 has had a single on-track death over the past twenty years in a one-off accident, and work began immediately to make sure that type of accident won't happen again.

I had no idea he had an airline.

Neither did I. I'm not a huge Formula 1 fan, but when I was a kid, his name was practically synonymous with car racing.

For me he's synonymous with flying. First Lauda Air, then Fly Niki with Air Berlin and now Lauda Motion with Ryanair.

Personally I couldn't think of a worse legacy than having my name associated with Ryanair.

I guess I'm not a big fan of flying either. His racing reached me, his airlines didn't.

I flew with another airline that he was part of called Laudamotion. Its part of ryanair (not great), but you can tell from the more sportif look. The seats were pure leather and the airhosteses were wearing jeans.

> Funny that nearly the first comment on this thread dealt not with Lauda’s Formula 1 career but his airline ventures.

The real reason I'll check HN comments first.

> He really must be more widely known for that now.

No, here in Europe F1 is a household thing. Everybody nows about the race car driver. He worked as a F1 pundit in German TV and there is even the movie about him and James Hunt, "normal" people know about that. They don't care about aircraft technology.

I actually did fly on his airline, sometime in the mid nineties. Very high quality service even in the economy class.

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