Volotea: The Biggest Low-Cost Airline You've Never Heard Of

30.04.2024 - 10:59 / skift.com / Wizz Air / Gordon Smith / Airlines

There’s a fairly high chance that you’ve never heard of Volotea. But it’s one of the quirkiest budget airlines anywhere on the planet. It’s also (usually) pretty profitable.

Think of European low-cost carriers and the big boys probably come to mind. Ryanair, easyJet, and Wizz Air are the most prominent players continent-wide, with the likes of Vueling, Norwegian, and Eurowings also enjoying a high profile, especially in their home regions.

But how does Volotea, a privately owned and financed airline, survive in Europe’s hyper-competitive market?

The Barcelona-based company leaves the trunk routes for the big names. Instead, it has carved out a niche serving smaller cities overlooked or ignored by others.

Volotea was founded in 2011 by Carlos Muñoz (pictured above) and Lázaro Ros, but this wasn’t their first foray into aviation. The duo also founded the aforementioned Vueling, which is now owned by IAG, the parent firm of British Airways and Iberia.

While you’ll find Volotea’s distinctive red and white airplane tails at airports in Paris, Rome, and Madrid, the core of the Volotea network lies in secondary and tertiary European cities. The airline has almost 450 routes, with more than half of these being exclusively served by Volotea. 

The airline reaches 110 airports, stretching from Portugal to Greece and most countries in between. It is strongest in France, Italy, and Spain, where it has the bulk of its 21 network bases. Earlier this year, the all-Airbus operator carried its 60-millionth passenger. 

In the latest of our Leaders of Travel: Skift C-Suite Series, we sit down with Muñoz.  

Skift: You had a fairly tough time during the pandemic. Can you give us some context on how 2024 is looking compared to recent years?

Carlos Muñoz: In 2020, from memory, we lost €66 million, and in 2021 we reduced that to €38 million. Remember, this is a company that had been profitable in the previous six years. We thought 2022 was going to be the turnaround year, and then in February Russia invaded Ukraine. That was a tragedy for Ukraine, for Europe, and for the world. Fuel prices go up. We have always hedged, but Covid-19 killed the hedging possibility. So 2022 was actually our worst year.

But things have picked up more recently? 

What went right in 2023 is that there was no big pandemic and no big war starting, although [the Russia-Ukraine war] did unfortunately continue. Demand was super strong and it remains so into 2024. You read figures published by the public airline companies, I can tell you that as a private company, I see the same, if not more. We’re seeing a strong pricing environment. 

With a strong performance last year and momentum continuing into 2024, there has been a lot of speculation that an