Volotea is announcing historic growth in its European offer in 2022, with 39% more seats, 45 new routes and almost 70,000 flights. All in all, Volotea will offer 11 million seats in EuropeThis is well ahead of the 2019 record of 8.5 million seats. Volotea also expects to carry between 9 and 9.5 million passengers, 32% more than its 2019 record of 7.6 million passengers.
In France, Volotea will offer 5.5 million seats and 33,000 flights. The company doubles its capacity compared with 2021. Compared with 2019, the increase will be 54%. In fact, France will account for 49% of Volotea's activity. It is also a strategic market for the carrier.
Volotea has been operating in France for 10 years. It operates 6 bases in Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Strasbourg and Toulouse out of a total of 23 French airports served. Volotea has already announced its intention to open two new bases. And to employ 60 more people in France. It has just revealed that Lille will be its new base from May with five new routes. We will know a little more about the future destinations in a few days' time. But Volotea has indicated that the northern metropolis will be linked to a total of 15 destinations. The eighth base remains a secret for the time being!
More flights, but also more sustainability
In 2021, Volotea has accelerated its transition to a 100% Airbus fleetwith the aim of improving its performance and cost structure over the next two to three years. The introduction of new aircraft will be accompanied by a drive to use sustainable fuels this year. This initiative will continue to reduce the carbon footprint per passenger and per kilometre. This has already been reduced by 41% since 2012.
"We hope thatfrom Easterthe sector will begin to recover from the effects of the 5th wave and that there will be gradual growth in demand until the summer season, from April to October, when we expect to operate 41% more capacity than in 2019, before the pandemic. We took this decision after analysing demand in our markets, and after managing to maintain a average seat load factor greater than 90 % since June 2020 "commented Carlos Muñoz, founder and CEO of Volotea.
