Spanish LCC Volotea made a €15 million ($17 million) investment ahead of this year’s summer season to implement measures that include coordinating flight operations with standby aircraft, adding more crews and improving passenger service.
Volotea specializes in point-to-point routes between more than 80 small- to mid-sized cities that are typically too thin to attract major LCCs.
The airline carried 6.6 million passengers in 2018, up 36% year-over-year, and expects to carry between 7.5 and 8 million passengers this year.
Volotea has added six Airbus A319s to increase its fleet to 36 aircraft (19 A319s and 17 Boeing 717s). Two A319s will provide backup support.
The two A319s—strategically located in France, Italy and Greece—will be used for a faster response when needed. Volotea has also increased the number of standby crews by 50%; activation time is reportedly 33% faster.
After a challenging 2018 season in terms of flight delays, Volotea said new channels of communications with clients have been introduced and the LCC has reinforced its presence at airports as well as in the passenger booking process.
In addition, Volotea has invested in an ambitious flight protection program to significantly reinforce the integrity of its operations in the event of problems caused by European air traffic space congestion during the summer months.
The LCC has designed a special plan during the six most critical weeks in the summer and has put in place a more spread-out schedule (extended block times) for a more efficient flight management. The model includes the implementation of “firewalls” dividing daily operations in two halves to avoid long delays…
