Spain’s Volotea to add 15-19 A320s in 2021

Volotea (V7, Asturias) has announced it will add at least fifteen A320-200s in 2021, and perhaps four more depending on the summer season demand. The Spanish carrier recently retired all 14 of its remaining B717-200s (five aircraft of the type were retired between 2016 and 2019) and will now replace them with the larger but more cost-effective Airbus narrowbodies. “We are very proud to move towards a 100% Airbus fleet. As a European company, we are very keen to count on Airbus as our fleet partner long-term. We will continue growing on our strategy of connecting mid and small European cities, with a more modern and competitive aircraft type, the Airbus A320, that has 20-25% lower operational costs than the B717s it replaces,” Founder and Chief Executive Carlos Muñoz said. The airline said it had already sourced the first fifteen A320s, but did not reveal their identity. According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, its first five aircraft will be EC-MBK (msn 2658), EC-NOL (msn 2740), EC-NNZ (msn 2616), EC-NNY (msn 3786), and msn 3545, which does not have a Spanish registration assigned yet. So far, none of them has been delivered. The A320s will join Volotea’s existing fleet of twenty-one A319-100s, of which one has yet to be delivered. Muñoz said that thanks to their larger capacity and lower cost-base, the A320s will work well for the airline during the post-COVID recovery phase. He added that Volotea has identified a number of new market opportunities in particular niches left in Spain following the take over of Air Europa by Iberia, and in France due to the corporate reorganisation of Air France-KLM’s Air France, HOP!, and Transavia France subsidiaries.