He once said about Formula 1 racing: To finish first, one must first finish. Indeed, as Ray Bugeja found out when he met Niki Lauda in Vienna, the checkered flag remains his ultimate aim in whatever project he has in hand.

His life has always been on the fast lane. Three times Formula 1 world champion, Mr Lauda was given up for dead and even administered the last rites after a horrific crash that set his car alight at the old Nurburgring circuit in Germany in 1976. He made a full recovery and now, aged 60 and expecting his fourth child, not even the sky is the limit - having just signed up as a space tourist.

Having been To Hell And Back, as he titled his autobiography, there can be very little that could stop the man credited with a razor sharp, computer-like mind and relentless determination.

He first built his own career, which not even a raging flame could destroy, then set up an airline against many odds and problems that not even the late, legendary Bruno Kreisky, former Chancellor of Austria, could solve, and now runs another air carrier based on the low-cost concept and fighting cutthroat competition.

He set up his first airline, Lauda Air, in April 1979, starting operations six years later. He sold Lauda Air to Austrian Airlines in 2001 and in November 2003 Mr Lauda launched his new venture, Fly Niki, which operates on a low-cost concept. Air Berlin owns 24 per cent of Niki.

"The reason I had to call it Niki is very simple because I sold Lauda with Lauda Air and now we have the funny situation... whereby Niki flies against Lauda... I fly myself, so I say to everybody: If you want to fly Lauda you have to fly Niki because there is Niki Lauda inside."

Niki has 12 airliners and flies to the main cities in Europe. In 2008, it doubled its profit to €7.1 million after tax over the previous year.

In January, Niki had a 40 per cent increase in passengers, 41 per cent in February and 29 per cent in March. Mr Lauda believes Niki is the only airline in Vienna that posted double-digit increases in passenger load. He quickly explains why:

"In the crisis we are facing, our concept is to sell cheaper tickets but offer the same package or even a better one then what the established carriers do. Niki passengers get a sandwich and free drinks. They are afforded the same service, basically, indeed, a better service than Austrian Airlines' and this on our low-cost concept. So our package gives the passenger a warm welcome; you get what you pay for and we are between 30-40 per cent cheaper than Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and all the others. It depends on the day you book because the later you book to the day of the flight the more expensive the ticket becomes. But in the end, we are always cheaper than the established carriers."

The economic crisis is, of course, having its effect on airlines, especially on the bigger legacy carriers, burdened as they are with heavy cost structures. This makes it very difficult for a costly airline to reduce fares in order to meet the market demands. So, they have to cut back.

"The advantage we have," Mr Lauda explains in relation to Niki, "is that we started with a white piece of paper and very low costs because that is how we had to start. So we have to do nothing and we can afford selling people tickets. The others have to restructure the whole operation, either taking airplanes out, if the demand is low, or look into their own costs. All the big airlines have to do that but I still believe that none of the big established airlines that have always posted profits will go down."

Restructuring is happening in the airline business but some of the companies are shackled by different commitments. Mr Lauda mentions union contracts. Those with restrictive union contracts have very little room to manoeuvre whereas a company like Niki has more options to choose from.

"In our airline we decide what to do. Of course, we pay our pilots well. We can restructure very quickly because my biggest advantage is that I have 38 people who do all my work. Only 38 people for a turnover of €300 million and 12 airplanes; 500 people in total but the rest are crews and technicians. This is possible because I am linked to the Air Berlin system. So all the despatching, crewing, all these people-intensive departments I do not have because I am hooked up to the Air Berlin system."

Mr Lauda is outspoken but he is careful what to say.

I try to provoke him: You spoke about how you treat passengers and welcome them on board. There is no need to mention names but there has been talk of introducing fees for using toilets in-flight or for passengers who are too fat. Don't you think that will work against the low-cost concept and do more damage than good?

"No, there are different ways of flying.

"One is the Ryanair concept, which is flying people; basically people with no money, students and whatever. So they go to the mass of people who say: I cannot afford to fly but with this €5 ticket price I can fly. So, in the case of these people, if a crisis is coming, they have even less money, as there is no extra money left in their pocket. Hence, they will think: Do I go to the pub for a beer or do I fly to Barcelona? Eventually, they will go to the pub and have a beer. Therefore, (Ryanair boss Michael) O'Leary comes up with this crazy idea that you will have to pay when you want to have a pee, which I think is ridiculous because it will not work.

"I think a low-cost airline can only survive if the mixture is between low-cost passengers and the business-type of passengers; high yield. If you don't find this mix, you will not succeed."

He even volunteers some data. At today's fuel prices, for a flight lasting one hour, a one-way ticket would have to cost €72 and the passenger load would have to be on average 80 per cent in order to break even given Niki's cost structure. That means, Mr Lauda adds, he can sell 10-12 per cent of seats on a flight from Vienna to Frankfurt for €29 but the rest will have to be more expensive.

He explains that one must be careful not to go beneath a certain level of revenue because then quality will suffer and without quality an airline cannot dream of attracting higher yield passengers.

Does that mean Ryanair will eventually go bust?

"No, they will not go bust," Mr Lauda quips, "because they are so big already in their own way and what they are really trying to do is to raise money in every way, which is a different concept that is fine by me, but I think that were Niki to take up the Ryanair concept I will not succeed in my market here because the Austrians are quality fliers..."

One other lesson that Mr Lauda has learnt is that his airline must fly to the main airports and not to secondary ones because he feels that doing so would not work for the sort of low-cost concept that Niki embraces.

One might wonder how a racing car driver ended up running an airline.

Mr Lauda recounts the following anecdote:

"Originally, it was very simple: In the 1970s, the Klagenfurt airport director asked me why wouldn't I fly a Fokker propeller aircraft from Vienna to Klagenfurt once Austrian Airlines did not do that. They only flew a DC9 at that time. I knew I could not race forever, so I thought it would be a good idea, from a business case viewpoint. Thus, I bought the first F27 Fokker and tried to fly to Klagenfurt and, suddenly, Austrian Airlines woke up and said: This guy is not allowed to fly.

"And then I had a hell of a time here with the government. I give you one example. Austrian Airlines fought me like you would not believe it, even though I was not competing with them. I had a Fokker and they had the jet airplanes. Bruno Kreisky, our old Chancellor, who I knew, called a meeting, and I will never forget that. The Minister of Transport, the CEO of Austrian Airlines, the Finance Minister and myself were all summoned by Mr Kreisky. He said: We allowed Mr Porsche to leave Austria and now he builds his Porsche cars in Germany. I don't want this to happen with Mr Lauda. So why can't this guy fly with his stupid Fokker in Austria? This is what he asked.

"The Austrian Airlines CEO replied that the Fokker is not pressurised and so it could not fly over the mountains. And I interjected and said: Excuse me, I fly the airplane, of course it is pressurised. He said: You have no idea.

"The Finance Minister asked what company I owned. I told him and he said: Let it go bankrupt. It doesn't matter. I said I have borrowed money from the bank and I have been taught that I have to pay the money back to the bank. He answered that the bank has a lot of money and so I should not worry.

"The Transport Minister said he was prepared to give me four out of eight traffic rights. Yeah, but the other four can either make me or break me.

"So Mr Kreisky started screaming and shouting at them. He insisted that we should sort this thing out and let me fly. So we all left.

"Nothing happened and three months later I called Mr Kreisky to see what was going on. He apologised. I did not know at the time that he had kidney problems and that he was getting very sick. He said he could not succeed in fighting his own government and making them help me. He admitted he had no alternative but to give up."

In 1982, Mr Lauda started racing again but stopped in 1985. He had applied for a licence to start charter flights using Boeing B737s. Here, again, he has another interesting story to recount.

"After winning the world championship in Lisbon (in 1984) by half a point, the Prime Minister invited me for a big celebration to meet him in front of the press and so on. So I told his secretary: Listen, I have applied for a charter licence to fly the B737, because I was limited with the Fokker, and I still have no answer. I will not come to your celebration unless I get this licence.

"I went to see him and asked about my licence. He said I should not worry as the matter would be fixed. I said I had been working on it for six months but nothing happened. I said, in the presence of the press: If I don't get it today I will join the demonstrators opposing a new power plant project. Five minutes later I had my licence."

A case of where there is will, there is a way. Others might say that the end justifies the means!

Mr Lauda eventually started flying the B737 but when he applied for a scheduled licence, things became difficult again because the authorities said it was only Austrian Airlines that could operate scheduled flights. So Mr Lauda applied for a scheduled flight between Vienna and Sydney, "which is stupid because normally you start domestic and then go long haul. The only reason we did so was because Austrian Airlines only had MD80s and, of course, those planes could not fly that long. So we had to sue the government here in order to obtain a scheduled licence because we argued that if they did not fly there why should we not get a scheduled licence."

In the end, he got the licence but then had to order a B767 and then a B777 in order to fly to Australia. (It is worth pointing out that at one stage there had been talks about the possibility of the Vienna-Sydney Lauda Air flight making a stop in Malta. Mr Lauda recalls that indeed there had been contacts with Malta about the matter "but in the end unfortunately it did not work out".)

"To make a long story short, Lufthansa was part of Lauda. They owned 40 per cent. It worked very well and they made Lauda a scheduled airline taking on Austrian Airlines. Austrian Airlines cooperated with SwissAir. Then the head of Lufthansa told me: Look, it would be nice if Austrian Airlines had a shareholding in Lauda. Then eventually we joined Star Alliance. At that time, I thought the move was logical from an economic viewpoint; instead of fighting each other we work together.

"But my biggest mistake was to underestimate the different cultures prevailing within different employees and two companies. We thought we can work together and speed Austrian Airlines up and make a big, good company out of it. Alas, it did not work out that way and the avalanche of Austrian Airlines killed Lauda Air and in the end I gave up and they had to buy my shares because it was part of the Lufthansa contract. So, 10 years ago I sold Lauda Air.

"When we joined Air Berlin, the first thing I did was to go there and check their culture. The culture prevailing at Air Berlin and Niki is exactly the same. The boss there is the number one and what he says goes; short discussions, no b....., no bla bla, no politics, everybody is trained to be as quick as you can in order to finish in front of the others. So this works very well."

Mr Lauda seems to be saying: If you can't beat them, don't join them.

His habit of winning knows no end.

The author was in Vienna as guest of Malta International Airport.