Volotea Opens New Base at Marseille

Spanish low-cost carrier (LCC) Volotea, has just opened a base at Marseille, France. Although not a well known airport, Marseille International Airport has helped Volotea grow. Not only does the airport have little competition, demand is skyrocketing and the airline has been increasing its capacity from the airport more and more each year. Actually, in total, the airline offers about 77% more capacity each year at Marseille.

Volotea started operating from Marseille in 2014 and has since enjoyed a monopoly on many routes and has achieved high load factors. Since it opened the first route from the airport in 2014, the airline has flown with an average load factor of 83% on routes to and from Marseille. Volotea founder and CEO Carlos Muñoz said, "We want to reinforce our offering and presence in Marseille, so this year we have increased our capacity by 56%, adding nine new destinations". The nine new destinations are mainly to Greece, with 4 new destinations from Marseille scheduled to be served to the Mediterranean country. In addition to that, two routes to Spain will be added and domestic flights in France will be available for booking. Finally, Funchal in Portugal will also be added to Marseilles' list of destinations that are served by Volotea.

Volotea is currently the only European operator of the Boeing 717. Although the airplane has served the carrier well, Volotea is now transitioning to an Airbus A319 only fleet. It was revealed in November 2015 that Airbus A320 family aircraft would eventually replace the ageing Boeing 717 fleet. "We are very pleased to incorporate these four A319 to our fleet and become an Airbus operator in the long term", remarked the CEO in November 2015 when the delivery of 4 A319s was just a few months away. Carlos Muñoz also said, "In the coming years we expect to have a 100 percent A319 fleet. These new aircraft will also allow us to serve more distant destinations and provide superior on-board service as there will be improved seating pitch".

Volotea commenced operations on the 5 of April, 2012. The airline started off with a flight from Venice Marco Polo International Airport in Italy to Palermo, again, in Italy. The first flight was flown by a Boeing 717 which had 125 seats. At the start of its operations, the LCC had huge plans to grow. Upon launching operations, the carrier announced 76 new routes, all operated by Boeing 717s. Italy was and still is a very important market for Volotea, and was had the most routes when the airline started operations.

Marseille International Airport is the fifth busiest airport in France in terms of passengers. In terms of cargo, the airport is the third busiest in France. Although not so well known, the airport serves 132 different destinations, which is more than any other airport in France except for the big Paris airports. The airport is a focus city for Air France and the airline serves 3 destinations in total from Marseille including 2 domestic and 1 international, to Amsterdam. North Africa, namely Algiers, is a very popular destination, with airlines operating multiple frequencies to the airport. However, Volotea does not, whether its because there is too much competition or whether they just find that there is a lot of potential to expand its destination list elsewhere. Before the airline opened the base, the LCC served three destinations: Vienna, Strasbourg and Venice.

Volotea is continuously growing and could soon be at a position where they are the major competitor to low-cost major, Ryanair. Low cost airlines have enjoyed using the European open skies agreement which allows airlines to fly to anywhere in Europe paying fees as if it were a domestic flight. Volotea has also been taking advantage of this and has also been filling a gap in the regional/domestic market. For example, its first flight was from Venice to Palermo which was a regional flight and shows how airlines can be very profitable whether they operate long haul flights, or not.