Spain’s Volotea to open seasonal Olbia base

Volotea (V7, Asturias) has announced it will open a seasonal summer-only base in northern Sardinia, basing a single A319-100 out of Olbia airport starting on June 4, 2021. “We confirm again that Sardinia is one of the most important regions in our development strategy and we are really happy to announce the opening of our new summer base in Olbia: with this important investment we want to support the local economy and contribute to the restart of tourism,” President Carlos Muñoz said. The Spanish low-cost carrier will add two new domestic routes, to Cuneo and Catania, once the base opens. Volotea already has 17 routes planned from Olbia, although none of them are currently active. The first six domestic routes are expected to restart on April 1, the ch-aviation schedules module shows, while international flights to Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Nantes are due to gradually resume in the second half of April. Although exact market shares are fluid due to the high number of seasonal routes, the ch-aviation capacities module shows that, based on current schedules, Volotea will have a 21.1% market share at Olbia by capacity between June 1 and August 31, 2021. It will trail behind easyJet Europe/easyJet (29.1%) but will overtake Alitalia (15.5%). Olbia was an Air Italy (IG, Milan Malpensa) legacy base and also served as its corporate headquarters dating back to its birth as Meridiana fly/Alisarda. The airport has struggled to attract new airline bases since Air Italy’s collapse in February last year. Ryanair did toy with the idea in the wake of Air Italy’s demise but these plans never materialised.