Volotea founder and CEO Carlos Muñoz on stage at Routes Europe 2025.
SEVILLE, Spain—Spanish LCC Volotea will launch a fifth route from Seville later this year, with flights to Bordeaux, France, planned to start in October.
Volotea founder and CEO Carlos Muñoz announced the new route Wednesday during a presentation at Routes Europe 2025 here in Seville. It will be Volotea’s first international route out of Seville.
“We connect medium cities to medium cities, and Seville is Spain’s fourth-largest city with a population of about 800,000-900,000,” Muñoz said. “It is a matter of common sense that what should drive travel is where people live. Trust me, people don’t want to drive 2 hr. to get to an airport. We airlines should be driving supply, and that’s what Seville is about for us.”
Volotea currently serves Asturias, Bilbao, San Sebastian and Santander from Seville. During the 2025 summer season, it will offer about 84,000 departure seats from Seville, marking a year-on-year rise of 6%. Volotea serves 24 destinations in Spain, and Seville will be its eighth-largest by capacity this summer, according to OAG Schedules Analyser data.
Muñoz said that in choosing a new route or destination, Volotea was “very, very data-driven,” adding: “The cost of being first is that you can make mistakes. But if you fail and learn from that, it makes you smarter in the future. The quality of our predictions and what will work are very good now.”
Volotea, which operates an all-leased Airbus A319/A320 fleet, sees France, Italy and Spain as its biggest markets, but Muñoz also cited the fast-growing Greece market. The airline has a codeshare with Athens-based LCC Aegean, which has a 17% stake in Volotea that could grow to 21%, Muñoz confirmed.
The partnership, which started in 2021, has grown to codeshares on 140 routes and “is very good,” Muñoz said. The reasons for that include that the two airlines are complementary and that Aegean “has a very good product, very low costs and phenomenal profitability.”
Muñoz added: “The relationship could go further—we like each other, so why not? There are a lot of nice synergies, but we will keep the two companies separate at an operational level.”
When asked about potential markets Volotea is eyeing, Muñoz said he could not reveal specifics, but did say that he and his team had met with representatives at some 100 airports during the Routes Europe event. He mentioned regions that Volotea is watching include Eastern Europe, Morocco and Africa, and Northern Europe.
On fleet plans, Muñoz said the airline would need to replace its A319s at some point.
“Airbus would like [that replacement] to be the A220, but we are also looking at the [Embraer] E2,” he said.
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