LONDON – Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings and the Spanish airline Volotea have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enter into a mutual sales partnership.
Mutual partnership on 140 European routes
The cooperation will cover more than 140 European routes operated by both airlines without overlap, including more than 100 routes operated by Eurowings and around 40 operated by Volotea.
The connections also include plans for eight new routes flown by Volotea, connecting German airports such as Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Stuttgart directly with French and Italian cities.
As a result, Bordeaux, Lyon, Nantes, Florence and Verona will also be reached with direct flights in the future. With this, the two airlines are significantly broadening their pan-European portfolio for customers.
Spain’s Volotea is currently one of the fastest growing airlines in Europe. Founded in 2011, the Barcelona-based company now flies to more than 100 destinations in 16 countries.
In Germany, the airline has been operating the weekly Airbus-internal factory shuttle between the Hamburg and Toulouse locations since 2019.
With the new sales partnership, Volotea is also offering scheduled flights in Germany for the very first time.
At the same time, Eurowings intends to open its distribution channels to Volotea with its focus on smaller and medium-sized destinations in France and Italy.
With the planned mutual distribution agreement, both Eurowings passengers and Volotea customers would benefit from the visibility of more than 140 connections on the websites of both airlines.
This way, Eurowings and Volotea would improve the offer to their passengers, providing access to a significantly wider range of travel options throughout Europe.
New connections
In the context of the planned connections, Volotea will open eight new routes to and from Germany, connecting Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Stuttgart.
The German services will connect with the airline’s French bases in Bordeaux, Lyon, Nantes and its Italian bases in Florence and Verona.
These new routes will operate twice weekly and have a capacity of around 60,000 seats. In summary the route breakdown is as follows:
New routes from 26 May 2023
- Berlin-Verona
- Düsseldorf-Bordeaux
- Stuttgart-Bordeaux
New routes from 10 and 12 October 2023
- Berlin-Lyon
- Hamburg-Bordeaux
- Hamburg-Florence
- Hamburg-Lyon
- Stuttgart-Nantes
Partnership CEO statements
Jens Bischof, CEO of Eurowings said: “The planned mutual sales cooperation with Volotea will open up numerous new destinations in France and Italy for our customers, as well as attractive connections within Southern Europe.”
Carlos Muñoz, founder and CEO of Volotea said: “We are very pleased to launch our commercial activities in Germany with a strong distribution partner and important player in the country. The planned strategic agreement with Eurowings is significant and unique, covering more than 140 routes with no overlap and signals the potential of a stronger, long-term partnership.”
About Eurowings
Eurowings is the value airline of the Lufthansa Group and thus part of Europe’s largest airline group.
With 11 international bases – including Mallorca as Europe’s number one vacation island – the Lufthansa subsidiary is one of the largest vacation airlines in Europe.
It currently has a fleet of around 100 aircraft and employs more than 4,000 people.
About Volotea
Volotea was founded in 2011 by Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros, previous founders of Vueling. It is one of the fastest-growing independent airlines in Europe in the last decade.
Volotea services more than 100 airports out of bases in 19 medium-sized European capitals.
The airline operates a fleet of 41 Airbus A319 and A320.
Volotea has won, for the second year in a row, the award as ‘Europe’s Leading Low-Fares Airline’ at the 2022 World Travel Awards, an awards organization recognizing excellence in the transportation and tourism industry worldwide.
