Serious allegations against Lalona Air

The employees of Lalona Air sharply criticize 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 bailed out.

The Düsseldorf start-up Lalona Air actually wanted to offer business flights from 2022, but now employees are making serious allegations, reports Aviation.direct with reference to CH-Aviation. What's going on?

Lalona Air was due to start selling tickets in a few days' time. Shortly beforehand, employees of the start-up are now making serious allegations. They were allegedly not paid a salary, only some of them received some cash. There was allegedly no registration with social security and the tax ID was fictitious. According to their own statements, the employees had signed contracts. However, Aviation.direct reported that the associated limited company had never been founded. The scam was allegedly uncovered when the estate agent refused to hand over the keys to the new office because he had not seen the deposit or rent, a former employee told Aviation.direct.

But not only the employees, but also partners and investors are said to have been deceived. 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 was unable to meet the requirements for continuing the cooperation in the next phase", as CEO Dennis Rybasch told the industry portal . The employees of Lalona Air found out that the collaboration had ended rather by chance: "We sensed that something was wrong. At some point, Alsie stopped answering our emails," says a Lalona employee 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." This prompted the Danes to return the slots for Lalona Air at Düsseldorf Airport.

The investor Hans Rudolf Wöhrl is said to have invested in the start-up, but when asked by CH-Aviation, he neither knows Lalona Air nor is he aware of the financing. Employees of the start-up also phoned other alleged investors, but 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 allegations and the airline's website is currently no longer accessible. Lalona Air and its founder have not yet been available for an inquiry by Startbase; the presumption of innocence applies.