Today, Spanish low-cost airline Volotea has signed a codeshare agreement with Greece's Aegean Airlines that will increase its capacity by 34% compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. With the bilateral deal, Aegean Airlines becomes Volotea's second codeshare partner together with TAP Air Portugal.

The airline has gained prominence by connecting secondary European cities in its network. Along with the medium-sized city network, since the onset of the pandemic, Volotea has increased the number of domestic flights in Italy, France, and Spain.

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Vaccinations are the key to growth

During the first half of 2021, Volotea quietly went about its business while behind the scenes getting ready to ramp up capacity in the second half of the year. The belief at the airline is that passengers numbers will start to increase as more people become vaccinated.

According to Routesonline, Volotea started flying 25 new routes leading up to June 30 and now plans to add a further 29 before the end of the year. The plan includes eight Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport (LYS) routes and seven from Marseille Provence Airport (MRS).

Most of the new routes will be in Greece

For Volotea, the new codeshare agreement with Aegean Airlines will add a further 100 city pairs to its European network, primarily in Greece. When speaking about the new codeshare in an Aegean Airlines statement, Volotea CEO Carlos Muñoz said,

“We are extremely happy to launch this partnership with AEGEAN, a much respected European independent airline that we share a lot of values with, in terms of high operational integrity, customer experience, and price competitiveness.

"We selected routes that we believe our clients will be very interested in and have been able to put together a very important number of destinations, which will cater for the increased offer of this summer. This agreement will offer both Volotea and AEGEAN a considerable growth opportunity since all the routes selected have no overlap.”

Volotea
Most of the new routes will be to Greece. Photo: Volotea

Aegean Airlines CEO Dimitris Gerogiannis is thinking similarly to Carlos Muñoz, and that believes leisure travel to Greece will pick up, saying,

“As leisure travel gradually returns, we are pleased to initiate this new cooperation with Volotea. The codeshare agreement will provide both our passenger's significant additional number of direct flight options between the Greek islands and mainland and Italy, France, and Spain both through our website and travel agents.

"We remain firmly committed to health-safe travel, to constantly improving our service offering, and to keep accelerating our network and options for our customers by collaborating with reliable and fast-growing partners.”

Volotea is an all-Airbus airline

According to ch-aviation, Volotea has a fleet of 33 aircraft that includes 19 Airbus A319-100s and 13 Airbus A320-200s.  Earlier this year, Volotea brought forward its aircraft modernization program and retired the last of its 19 Boeing 717s.

Currently, Volotea has 17 European bases at the following airports:

  • Asturias Airport (OVD)
  • Bilbao Airport (BIO)
  • Athens International Airport (ATH)
  • Hamburg Airport (HAM)
  • Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport (BOD)
  • Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport (LYS)
  • Marseille Provence Airport (MRS)
  • Nantes Atlantique Airport (NTE)
  • Genoa Cristoforo Colombo (GOA)
  • Cagliari International Airport Elmas (CAG)
  • Naples International Airport (NAP)
  • Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (OLB)
  • Palermo Airport (PMO)
  • Strasbourg Airport (SXB)
  • Toulouse–Blagnac Airport (TLS)
  • Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE)
  • Verona Villafranca Airport (VRN)
Volotea
Volotea is an all-Airbus airline

Volotea is certainly looking to the future with its new codeshare with Aegean Airlines, and given the fact that they benefit each other, it should prove to be successful.

What do you think about the new Volotea and Aegean Airlines codeshare? Please tell us what you think in the comments.