Volotea will open between two and four bases in Spain, following the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with IAG, whereby Volotea would operate some routes flown by Iberia and/or Air Europa, who would transfer the necessary slots.

This agreement is framed in the context of the acquisition by Iberia of 100% of Air Europa. To facilitate the buyout approval by the Competition Authorities of the EC, Iberia has proposed Volotea as a “Fix-it-first remedy”, by which, following the acquisition of Air Europa by Iberia, Volotea would start to operate the routes in which the EC might consider necessary the introduction of a new competitor. The EC must firstly approve the suitability of this solution. Volotea is legally advised in this process by law firm Pérez-Llorca.

Volotea is the ideal company as a “Fix-it-first remedy” since it is a Spanish airline independent from IAG, has a recognized leadership, demonstrated operative capabilities -over 260,000 flights and close to 30 million passengers flown since 2012- and a highly competitive profile, in complex markets. Volotea also stands out for its sales capabilities through all distribution channels as travel agencies and tour operators, their code sharing ability like the existing one with TAP Air Portugal, which positions it as an alternative for connection from Madrid.

Volotea is one of the fastest growing independent airlines in Europe, increasing its fleet, the number of routes it operates and its seats offering, every year. If the EC approves this proposal, Volotea will strengthen significantly its growth in Spain, with the opening of two to four new bases and the increase of its connectivity, placing itself amongst the main five airlines operating in Spain.

Founded by Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros in 2011, Volotea has grown rapidly, profitably and sustainably over time, demonstrating its management capabilities. It has yearly revenues of over €500 million, achieves recurring profit uninterruptedly since 2015 and will transport between 8.5 and 9 million passengers this year, with a seat-load factor of over 94 percent. Additionally, the punctuality index of Volotea is amongst the best in the industry, with 88.5% in 2020, operating over 354 routes from its 16 bases in five European countries, and employing 1,500 people. The history of Volotea is that of constant progression since its foundation, with the opening of 30-60 routes and between 1 and 3 bases, each year. Volotea has never closed any of its bases.

Volotea, which focused initially their business model in the connection of European small and mid-sized cities with direct flights, later expanded its connectivity with larger cities in Europe.

Athens was, in 2018, the first large hub in which Volotea opened a base, which has since then grown significantly. Over the last four years it has also improved its connectivity with Madrid and intends to open two new routes this year from Barcelona. The agreement with IAG poses a unique opportunity to continue growing in this direction, increasing its presence in a great hub such as Madrid.

An increase in routes and slots will also improve the connectivity between Autonomous Communities of Spain, specially the Canary and Balearic Islands, and also Galicia, Basque Country and Asturias. In Spain, Volotea operates 92 routes and flew 1.4 million passengers in 2019. The growth of Volotea’s activity in Spain will translate in an increase of its fleet, made up of 39 aircraft, and by the growth in staff, currently of 1,500 people in 2020.

Overall, Volotea operated 319 routes in 2019 and will reach this year 354 routes, with the opening of three new bases in Lyon, Naples and Hamburg, being present in a total of 96 airports in 15 countries. Volotea transported 7.6 million passengers in 2019 and estimates they will fly between 8.5 and 9 million passengers this year.

Volotea aircraft photo gallery:

Volotea, the Barcelona-based airline, has chosen Airbus to train all its pilots following the signature of an exclusive five-year contract. The training, which will commence in January 2020, includes Type-Rating* as well as long-term Recurrent** training linked to Volotea’s growing fleet of Airbus A319s – which will exceed 50 aircraft in 2023. The organization of the training plan is currently on-going, paving the way for the ‘go-live’ next year.

Volotea’s trainees will benefit from long-term use of Airbus’ full-flight simulators – located throughout Airbus’ Training Centre Network – and will be taught by a pool of expert pilot instructors, drawn from both Airbus and Volotea. The flexible training scheme will benefit from the cross-fertilization of both Volotea’s and Airbus’ respective expertise and standards. To this end, the airline is initially inducting four of its pilot instructors into Airbus’ training regime, while in parallel, Airbus is aligning around 20 of its own instructors in collaboration with Volotea’s operational requirements. As the airline progressively expands its A319 fleet, the size of the joint instructor pool is expected to commensurably increase. Volotea has selected the Airbus A319 as the model for its planned fleet expansion.

Airbus Services provides state-of-the-art training solutions to ensure safe, reliable and economically-efficient operations on all Airbus aircraft throughout their lifecycle. Airbus is on-hand to offer support every step of the way. A comprehensive and tailored training portfolio is designed and developed by Airbus for airline pilots, cadets, cabin crews, performance & operations engineers, maintenance personnel and structure & repair specialists.

*Type-Rating is the certification of an airline pilot to fly a certain aircraft “type” (in this case the Airbus A319) which requires additional training beyond the scope of the initial license and aircraft class training.

**Recurrent Training – which is often performed within an airline – is a long-term / ongoing activity for professional pilots. Such periodic training is required to enhance their aviation knowledge and skills, train on new equipment or avionics and to learn new and revised regulations and procedures. These periodic checks are also a regulatory requirement to keep a pilot’s license valid.

Volotea has made this announcement:

Volotea, the airline of mid and small‐sized European cities has reached an agreement with DΔNTE Aeronautical to collaborate in the project to develop a hybrid-electric aircraft for transportation of passengers.

Volotea is partnering with DΔNTE on a long-term project for the configuration of a state-of-the-art hybrid-electric small aircraft suitable to operate small inexistent routes in the next decade.

The new aircraft will be eventually able to serve routes between small and mid-size communities, where traditional aircraft are not profitable and other transport alternatives are not available.

This environmentally friendly project is led by DΔNTE Aeronautical and in which, apart from Volotea, other renowned institutions like Instituto de Empresa in Spain, ALTRAN in Europe and University of Sydney and University of Adelaide in Australia are taking part.

This project intends to boost the economic development of rural environments and underserved touristic destinations constrained today by reduced transport alternatives.

Additionally, the new concept will reduce emissions significantly through the use of electric motors, fed by electricity stored by batteries or generated on board with a highly-efficient internal combustion engine.

Industry objectives like IATA´s reduction in net aviation CO2 emissions of 50% by 2050 (relative to 2005 levels) will only be possible by a change of paradigm. The introduction of alternative technologies to conventional jet engines and turbo propellers are key to achieve that goal.

DΔNTE is an aerospace start-up with presence both in Spain and Australia, created to innovate in the aircraft industry with the integration of advanced manufacturing technologies, aerodynamics and electric power plants.

For that purpose, DΔNTE has commenced the design of a 19 to 35 passenger aircraft with all thrust provided by Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP), batteries for energy storage and an internal combustion turbo-generator working as “range extender”.

It is envisaged that this technology will allow the commercialization of future full electric aircraft. Although DΔNTE´s plans include a future retrofit to a battery only power-plant, this approach is not deemed commercially realistic until the 2030´s. Instead DΔNTE considers its hybrid solution will reduce fuel consumption and emissions more than 50% much sooner than that.

DΔNTE will work with Volotea to define the specifications of this future air passenger commuter to better adapt the aircraft to the most promising markets and routes where the new technology may be introduced in the future.

In order to validate the market opportunity, DΔNTE and Volotea will working closely and also with business schools like Instituto de Empresa in Spain or University of Adelaide in Australia, to estimate and size a new air transport segment that could be monetised and create thousands of jobs.

Upon the successful completion of this first phase, DΔNTE will enter into the detail design and manufacturing of a scaled prototype to be flight-tested as a prior step to its full industrialization and future commercialization. Volotea and DΔNTE expect their hybrid aircraft will be a commercial reality by mid next decade.

A preliminary configuration is already in place but DΔNTE will work in coming months with top aerospace renowned engineering and research organizations, like ALTRAN in Europe and University of Sydney in Australia to validate all the technical hypothesis and have a basic design that will underpin a future flight test phase.

Volotea aircraft photo gallery:

Volotea has announced that its head counts now exceeds 1,000 people among employees at its headquarters in Barcelona and its twelve bases in France, Italy, Spain and Greece.

In less than seven years, Volotea has created one thousand jobs, a remarkably strong growth from 2011 when the airline had five employees. In the last twelve months, Volotea has increased its headcount by 20%, adding 180 people and, since June has already exceeded 1,000 employees.

The almost 400 employees in France are working at Volotea bases in Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille and Strasbourg. More than 300 work in Venice, Verona, Genoa and Palermo (Italy) and more than 100 in Spain’s bases (Bilbao and Asturias), working in positions as pilots, cabin crew, handling and administrative tasks. In addition, there are 220 employees based in the Volotea’s Barcelona headquarters.

By roles, most of the employees work in the Operations Department (788 people, including 316 pilots, 424 cabin crews and 48 employees in administrative tasks and self-handling), spread among the twelve bases from where Volotea operates.

The airline’s headcount includes more than 35 different nationalities. Most of the employees are Spanish (423), Italian (252) and French (236), but Volotea also has a number of employees from Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland and Belgium.

The opening of three new bases this year has created 120 new positions in Bilbao, Marseille and Athens. Additionally, in the Barcelona headquarters, Volotea has created close to fifty new jobs, hiring staff in recent months in the Operations, Technical, Quality and Safety, Commercial, Marketing, and Strategy departments.

The airline, launched by Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros (also founders of Vueling in the previous decade), had only five employees in the summer of 2011: the above mentioned Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros, Marco Comani, Chief Strategy Officer (and former Chief Strategy Officer at Vueling); Roman Pané, Chief Operations Officer (former CEO at Futura); and John Owen, CFO (previously CEO at Jetblue in the United States).

Volotea’s Growth

Volotea has carried 18 million passengers since its first flight in 2012 and more than 4.8 million in 2017.

In 2018, Volotea has opened 58 new routes to serve a lineup of 293 routes, operating flights to 78 mid and small-sized European cities in 13 countries: France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Albania, Portugal, Malta, Austria, Ireland and Luxembourg. The airline expects to carry between 5.7m and 6.0 passengers in 2018.

Volotea has currently twelve bases: Venice, Nantes, Bordeaux, Palermo, Strasbourg, Asturias, Verona, Toulouse, Genoa, Bilbao, Marseille and Athens. These last three have been inaugurated recently in 2018.

Volotea employs over 1,000 people in summer 2018, a year in which it added 250 new positions.

In 2018, Volotea operates its network with 32 aircraft, Boeing 717s and Airbus A319s. Both models are recognized for their comfort and reliability, with Volotea offering reclining seats which are 5% wider than the average in airlines.

The Airbus A319 is the aircraft model selected for its future growth and will allow the company to increase its passenger capacity by 20% to 150 seats and to serve longer routes.

Photos: Volotea.