Volotea, the airline that connects medium-sized cities and European capitals, is warming up for the summer and announces another new international connection from Athens to the city of Lille, in France. This new route will be operated from July 12th with two flights per week on Tuesday and Saturday.
The launch of this new route shortens even more the distance between Greece and France: thanks to this new connection, all passengers departing from Athens will be able to visit the North of France and discover the wonders of the area, while more and more French passengers will be able to reach Athens directly from their hometown.
Volotea will thus connect Athens to 15 destinations over the summer: Bilbao (new route 2022), Bordeaux (new route 2022), Lille ( new route 2022), Lyon, Marseille, Nantes (new route 2022), Strasbourg, Bari, Turin (new route 2022), Venice, Verona, Heraklion, Mykonos, Santorini and Dubrovnik.
The airline will offer more around 570,000 seats ( more than 200% vs 2021) from Athens airport, while it will offer more than 1.4 million seats to and from the entire Greece ( + 147% vs 2021).
” We are thrilled to announce the launch of this new international route at Athens Airport. – said Valeria Rebasti, Country Manager Italy & Southeastern Europe of Volotea -. With our flights, it will be possible to reach yet another magical city, Lille, the capital of Haut de France, near the border with Belgium. A cultural hub and bustling university city. Old Lille, where most of the important attractions are located, is populated with handsome buildings from the 17th century with brick facades, along with baroque style and Dutchinfluenced architecture. I really recommend its visit! Thanks to this new connection we are also supporting even further the relaunch of the tourism sector, which has been suffering a lot in the last few years”.
Overall, in 2022 Volotea will operate with a fleet of 41 aircrafts and a growth in capacity of around 40% compared to 2019. The airline expects to transport between 9 and 9,5 million passengers in 2022, 32% more than the ones carried in 2019 when the airline reached its annual record of 7,6 million passengers. All Volotea routes are available on the website www.volotea.com and through all travel agencies.
ABOUT VOLOTEA
Volotea was founded in 2011 by Carlos Munoz and Lázaro Ros, previously founders of Vueling, is one of the fastest-growing independent airlines in Europe, increasing year-on-year its fleet, routes served, and seats offered. Since its start, Volotea has carried more than 35 million passengers across Europe.
Volotea is currently based in 18 medium-sized European capitals: Alghero , Asturias, Athens, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Cagliari, Hamburg, Lille (opened in April 2022l), Lyon , Marseille, Nantes, Naples, Olbia, Palermo, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Venice, and Verona. Volotea serves more than 100 cities in 16 countries, with novelties in 2022 such as Denmark, which will begin operating in May this year
from Italy, and Algeria, which began last December with flights from France.
The airline will operate a fleet of 41 aircrafts in 2022, up from 36 in summer 2019. In terms of volume, Volotea will increase its seat capacity by nearly 39% compared to 2019, highlighting the strong latent demand in Europe’s mid-sized city markets. Likewise, this year the airline plans to offer a total of 11 million seats, which represents an increase of almost 40% compared to 2019, the year in which the airline put 8 million tickets on sale; and increase its staff in all its markets. In June 2021, Volotea had more than 1,400 employees and by 2022 the company expects to have more than 1,600 employees in Europe. Volotea became a full Airbus carrier in 2021, by renewing part of its fleet with aircraft from the European manufacturer. The airline, which had planned to perform this fleet unification in 2023, has advanced its plans in order to improve its cost base over the next 2-3 years and increase its network offering, with aircraft that have a higher capacity and a longer flying range.
Since 2012, Volotea has carried out more than 50 sustainability actions, thanks to which it has reduced its carbon footprint per passenger and kilometer by more than 41%. In 2021, the airline began to voluntarily offset 5 percent of its total CO2 emissions, a percentage that will progressively increase by 5 percent each year, until it reaches 25 percent offset of its carbon footprint in 2025. And this year, the company will introduce sustainable fuels in aircraft and will collaborate with manufacturers and industry so that these fuels (now difficult to access) can be developed and become widespread as soon as possible.
Volotea was elected “Europe’s Leading Low-cost Airline” at the World Travel Awards 2021, the industry’s most prestigious awards recognizing excellence in the transportation and tourism industry worldwide.
