Volotea

---

title: "Volotea" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["airlines-of-spain", "airlines-established-in-2011", "airlines-for-europe", "spanish-companies-established-in-2011", "low-cost-carriers", "spanish-brands", "companies-based-in-asturias", "european-low-fares-airline-association"] description: "Spanish low-cost airline" topic_path: "geography/spain" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volotea" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Spanish low-cost airline ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox airline"]

Field	Value
airline	Volotea
logo	Volotea.svg
logo_size	150
image	[[File:Hamburg-Finkenwerder Airport Volotea Airbus A319-112 EC-NDH (DSC03709).jpg
caption	Volotea Airbus A319-112 landing at Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport
IATA	V7
ICAO	VOE
callsign	VOLOTEA
founded
commenced
bases	{{Collapsible list
framestyle	border:none; padding:0;
title	List of bases
1	Asturias
2	Bilbao
3	Bordeaux
4	Cagliari
5	Florence
6	Hamburg
7	Lille
8	Lourdes
9	Lyon
10	Marseille
11	Montpellier
12	Nantes
13	Naples
14	Olbia
15	Palermo
16	Strasbourg
17	Toulouse
18	Venice
19	Verona
frequent_flyer	Megavolotea
fleet_size	41
destinations	79
headquarters	Asturias Airport, Castrillón, Spain (registered office)
key_people	{{bulleted list
revenue	€ 694 million (2023)
num_employees	2,000
website
::

| airline = Volotea | logo = Volotea.svg | logo_size = 150 | image = [[File:Hamburg-Finkenwerder Airport Volotea Airbus A319-112 EC-NDH (DSC03709).jpg|250px]] | caption = Volotea Airbus A319-112 landing at Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport | alt = | IATA = V7 | ICAO = VOE | callsign = VOLOTEA | founded = | commenced = | ceased = | aoc = | bases = {{Collapsible list | framestyle = border:none; padding:0; | title = List of bases | 1 = Asturias | 2 = Bilbao | 3 = Bordeaux | 4 = Cagliari | 5 = Florence | 6 = Hamburg | 7 = Lille | 8 = Lourdes | 9 = Lyon | 10 = Marseille | 11 = Montpellier | 12 = Nantes | 13 = Naples | 14 = Olbia | 15 = Palermo | 16 = Strasbourg | 17 = Toulouse | 18 = Venice | 19 = Verona | hubs = | secondary_hubs = | focus_cities = | frequent_flyer = Megavolotea | lounge = | subsidiaries = | fleet_size = 41 | destinations = 79 | company_slogan = | parent = | headquarters = Asturias Airport, Castrillón, Spain (registered office) | key_people = {{bulleted list| | Carlos Muñoz (CEO) | Lázaro Ros (CEO)}} | revenue = € 694 million (2023) | operating_income = | net_income = | profit = | assets = | equity = | num_employees = 2,000 | website =

Volotea () is a Spanish low-cost airline registered in Castrillón and headquartered in Barcelona.

History

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Volotea's_head_office's_building.JPG" caption="Volotea's [[head office]] in [[Barcelona"] ::

Foundation and early years

Volotea was established by Alaeo S.L. from Barcelona, a company created by former Vueling founders, Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros. The name "Volotea" originates from the Spanish verb "revolotear", meaning "to fly around". It commenced operations on 5 April 2012, from Venice Marco Polo Airport.

The company is backed by three private-equity funds, two of them from Europe (Axis Participaciones Empresariales and Corpfin Capital) and a third from the United States (CCMP Capital), whose chairman, Greg Brenneman, was one-time President and COO of the US airline Continental Airlines, and also chairs Volotea's board. The company raised over €50m before operations began. US CCMP Capital Partners holds 49% of voting rights; Axis and Corpfin Capital 25%; and Muñoz and Ros 26% along with relatives: this ownership has existed since foundation, but it could change before an initial public offering prior to 2021–2022.

After studying the Bombardier CRJ1000 and the Embraer E-195 in 2011, Volotea selected the Boeing 717 after Southwest Airlines acquired AirTran and replaced its 717 fleet. In March 2015, it was announced that Volotea would receive a further four 717s from Blue1. However, in November 2015, Volotea announced plans to phase out its 717 fleet over the next few years and replace it with Airbus A320 family aircraft.

Volotea opened 90 routes in its first year, of which 40 were closed within two years; it operated almost 300 routes in summer 2018 including 220 openings, and this could double to at least 500-600 across Europe. Volotea has been profitable since 2014, a turnover of €360 million ($431 million) is expected in 2018 after $347M in 2017, carrying 5.7 to 6 million passengers, 50% being leisure travellers, 35% visiting friends and relatives, and 15% business travellers.

Due to the 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis, in 2017, Volotea changed the headquarters to Asturias.

Development since 2020

In January 2021, Volotea retired the last of its 19 Boeing 717-200s. It was the last European airline to operate the type. In October 2021, Volotea won the auction for handling the PSOs, for a period of 7 months, to and from the island of Sardinia, organised by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia on behalf of the Italian Government. The airline operated the PSO services by offering daily flights, as per what required by the auction, from the Sardinian airports of Cagliari-Elmas, Olbia-Costa Smeralda and Alghero-Fertilia to the Italian airports of Rome Fiumicino and Milan Linate. The PSO operations started on 15 October 2021 and are to end on 15 May 2022.

In January 2022, Volotea announced the closure of its base at Genoa Airport after five years, ending 14 routes. In March 2022, the company announced its intentions to take part in the upcoming PSO auction in Sardinia, which had been previously announced by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, solely with the route from Cagliari-Elmas to Rome Fiumicino airport, being it the most profitable service within the PSO scheme, while data regarding the other routes was being analysed as they were also being taken into consideration. Subsequently, at the end of the month, ITA Airways announced its willingness to operate PSO service routes from all Sardinian airports without any financial compensations for an year until May 2023. As a result, Volotea announced on 28 March 2022 that it was also interested in covering all PSO routes, without financial compensations, from both Cagliari-Elmas and Olbia-Costa Smeralda airports, after having analysed data from their previous PSO experience. In April 2022, Carlos Muñoz, the CEO of the company, eventually announced Volotea had reached an agreement with ITA Airways; according to which the airline will operate only half of the frequencies, while the remaining ones would be assigned to the counterpart.

In May 2023, Volotea and Eurowings signed a cooperation agreement with reciprocal sales of 150 routes.

Corporate affairs

The key trends for Volotea are: ::data[format=table] | Revenue (€m) | Number of employees | Number of passengers (m) | Passenger load factor (%) | Number of routes | Fleet size | References | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 2018 | 396 | | 6.5 | 93 | | | | 2019 | 441 | 1,300 | 7.6 | 94 | 319 | 36 | | 2020 | 192 | 1,120 | 3.8 | 90.7 | 285 | 36 | | 2021 | 302 | 1,209 | 6.0 | | 354 | 41 | | 2022 | 557 | 1,326 | 9.4 | 91 | 360 | 41 | | 2023 | 694 | 1,800 | 10.4 | | 410 | 44 | | 2024 | 811 | 2,000 | 11.4 | | 450 | 45 | ::

Destinations

The focus of Volotea's route network is on destinations around the European side of the Mediterranean coast as well as Western and Southern Europe. As of May 2018, Volotea serves metropolitan and leisure destinations mainly in Spain, France, Italy and Greece with destinations in Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway and Portugal. Volotea served its first African destination (Tangier, Morocco) on 5 April 2019.

Codeshare and interline agreements

Volotea has codeshare and interline agreements with the following airlines:

Codeshare

• Aegean Airlines
• Eurowings

Interline

• Air Transat
• French Bee

Fleet

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Airbus_A319_Volotea_(33029190796).jpg" caption="Volotea [[Airbus A319-100"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Volotea,_EC-NUP,_Airbus_A320-214.jpg" caption="Volotea Airbus A320-200"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Boeing_717-2BL,_Volotea_Airlines_JP7674151.jpg" caption="Boeing 717-200]] before retirement"] ::

Current fleet

, Volotea operates an all Airbus A320 family fleet composed of the following aircraft:

::data[format=table title="Volotea fleet"]

Aircraft	In service	Orders	Passengers	Notes	Total	41	—
Airbus A319-100	17	—	138
156
Airbus A320-200	24	—	174
180
::

Historical fleet

::data[format=table title="Former fleet"]

Aircraft	Total	Introduced	Retired	Notes
Boeing 717-200	19	2012	2021	Last European operator.
::

Accidents and incidents

• On 8 July 2025, a man died after trespassing onto the taxiway of Milan Bergamo Airport in Italy and was ingested into one of the engines of a Volotea Airbus A319 departing to Asturias, Spain. The incident is currently being treated as a suspected suicide.

Award and recognition

On 24 June 2024, Volotea was voted 2024 Best Low-Cost Airline in Europe by Skytrax.

References

References

1. Drum, Bruce. (31 March 2012). "Volotea starts charter operations".
2. (17 November 2020). "Conditions of carriage". Volotea.
3. (23 February 2023). "About Volotea". Volotea.
4. Baigorri, Manuel. "[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-15/new-carrier-volotea-sets-up-in-barcelona-base-of-failed-spanair.html New Carrier Volotea Sets Up In Barcelona, Base Of Failed Spanair]." ''[[Bloomberg L.P.. Bloomberg]]''. 15 February 2012. Retrieved on 12 June 2012.
5. (12 April 2012). "Venice launch for Europe's newest LCC Volotea; 76 routes planned this summer across 53 airports in 10 countries". [[anna.aero]].
6. "Right Away and All at Once: How We Saved Continental". In: Harvard Business Review on Crisis Management.
7. King, Amy. (February 17, 2012). "CCMP, Axis and Corpfin back Volotea". unquote.com.
8. (February 15, 2012). "Boeing, New European Airline Volotea Agree to 717 Leasing Deal". boeing.mediaroom.com.
9. "Finland's Blue to offload B717 fleet to Volotea, Delta".
10. (November 10, 2015). "Volotea to phase out B717s in favour of A319s". ch-aviation.com.
11. Clark. (23 May 2018). "INTERVIEW: Carlos Munoz, chief executive, Volotea". Flightglobal.
12. (2017-10-19). "Volotea traslada su sede social de Barcelona a Asturias, donde tiene su única base en España". Europa Press.
13. Macca, Marco. (2021-01-11). "Volotea: The End of The Boeing 717 in Europe".
14. "Continuità, rotte a Volotea - Regione Autonoma della Sardegna".
15. (2021-10-13). "Volotea batte Ita e si aggiudica voli agevolati Sardegna - Sardegna".
16. (14 October 2021). "Volotea Wins Territorial Continuity for the Sardinian Routes".
17. [https://www.aviacionline.com/2022/01/italy-volotea-to-close-its-base-in-genoa/ aviacionline.com] 29 January 2022
18. (2022-03-22). "Aerei: Sardegna, in estate con Volotea solo Cagliari-Fiumicino - Sardegna".
19. Madeddu, Davide. (2022-03-24). "Ita Airways pronta ai voli in continuità territoriale".
20. (2022-03-28). "Aerei: sfida sui cieli sardi tra Ita e Volotea, che rilancia - Sardegna".
21. (2022-04-06). "Volotea: Munoz, con Ita divisi voli Cagliari e Olbia al 50% - Sardegna".
22. (2023-06-09). "Volotea and Eurowings sales partnership signed".
23. (2023-10-04). "Corporate Social Responsibility at Volotea".
24. "Volotea: turnover 2016-2020".
25. "Volotea: passenger traffic 2015-2020".
26. "Volotea: passenger load factor 2017-2020".
27. "Non financial information report Volotea 2018".
28. "Non financial information report Volotea 2019".
29. "Non financial information report Volotea 2020".
30. "Non financial information report Volotea 2021".
31. "Non financial information report Volotea 2022".
32. (11 July 2024). "VOLOTEA REPORTS".
33. (25 February 2025). "Volotea surpassed 148m. euros in EBITDA and 11m. euros in revenue in 2024".
34. (2020-11-17). "Destinations".
35. (12 November 2018). "Volotea ouvre un Nantes – Tanger".
36. "Airline Partners {{!}} About Aegean".
37. "Volotea flights".
38. "Frenchbee Connect". Dohop.
39. (September 2025). "Global Airline Guide 2025 - Volotea".
40. (8 July 2025). "Italy's Milan Bergamo airport resumes flights with delays after man sucked into aircraft engine". Euronews.
41. James Plaisted. (2024-06-24). "Qatar Airways World’s Best Airline at 2024 World Airline Awards".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::