Serious allegations against Lalona Air

The employees of Lalona Air are sharply critical of the start-up: they are said to have received no payment, the GmbH was never registered and there are allegedly lawsuits against the founder. An important partner has dropped out.

Düsseldorf-based start-up Lalona Air actually wanted to offer business flights from 2022, and now employees are making serious accusations, Aviation.direct reports, citing CH-Aviation. What's going on?

In a few days, the ticket sales of Lalona Air should start. Shortly before that, employees of the start-up are now making serious accusations. They had not been paid a salary, only some of them had received some cash. There is said to have been no registration with the social security and the tax ID is said to be fictitious. According to their own statements, the employees had signed contracts. The associated limited company, however, Aviation.direct reported, had never been founded. Allegedly, the fraud was uncovered when the broker did not want to hand over the keys to the new office because he had not seen the deposit or the rent, as a former employee told Aviation.direct.

But it was not just employees who were allegedly deceived, partners and investors were too. The Danish aviation company Air Alsie was supposed to become a partner of the airline, but had terminated its contracts with Lalona Air because "Lalona Air could not meet the requirements for continuing the cooperation in the next phase", as CEO Dennis Rybasch indicated to the industry portal . That the cooperation had ended, the employees of Lalona Air learned rather by chance: "We sensed that something was wrong. Alsie at some point stopped answering our mails at all," a Lalona employee tells Aviation.direct. "Now it's clear why. They didn't get any money and the supposed bank guarantees that were supposed to be drawn weren't worth the paper they were printed on." That prompted the Danes to return the slots for Lalona Air at Düsseldorf airport.

Investor Hans Rudolf Wöhrl is said to have actually invested in the start-up, but when asked by CH-Aviation, he does not know Lalona Air, nor does he know about the funding. Employees of the start-up have also phoned through other alleged investors, no one knew of Lalona Air or the founder. According to information from former COO Felix Becker, several criminal charges have been filed against the 24-year-old. The founder himself did not comment on the accusations, the airline's website is currently no longer accessible. Lalona Air and its founder could not be reached for an inquiry by Startbase, the presumption of innocence applies.