Volotea is continuing its strong expansion in France, with the opening of its new base on 1 April this year. Lille airport will therefore become the airline’s seventh base in France. Volotea will become the largest airline operating out of Lille airport in terms of destinations. Volotea will continue to offer its current destinations and very soon will announce a number of new routes to a number of European countries, following on from the recent new route to Cagliari announced in January.
After setting up at Lille airport in 2012 with five routes, Volotea has significantly increased its offering and the number of passengers on its routes each year.
In 10 years, Volotea has transported almost one million passengers to and from Lille and, from the very beginning of its operations there, has always recorded constant and consistent growth within Lille’s existing air-transport network. In 2022, Volotea will therefore offer three times more destinations than in 2012, thereby meeting the demands of travellers in the Hauts-de-France region. This year, the company will offer more than 490,000 seats to and from its new base and will directly create more than 30 jobs in the Lille region, in addition to indirectly creating a further 25 jobs.
“We’re very proud to announce the launch of our new base at Lille airport, and therefore our seventh base on the French market! The opening of this new base is the culmination of the excellent relationship between Lille airport and Volotea. More and more residents from Hauts-de-France have been flying with us over the past 10 years, which has prompted us to further develop our offering in order to constantly offer more and more seats to more and more destinations in France and in Europe, in order to connect northern France to as many cities as possible via attractively priced direct flights. By setting up a base in Lille, Volotea is going to have a positive and social economic impact on the region, by creating new jobs (directly and indirectly) in the roles required for overseeing operations around this new base, confirming Lille airport’s role in the region’s economic development”, Carlos Muñoz, CEO and founder of Volotea.
Volotea is expecting record growth in 2022 in Europe and France currently accounts for 49% of the company’s operations, with 5 million more seats expected, which is up 54% against the 2019 figure. The airline, which is preparing to mark ten years of operations in France, will also open a second new base this year in addition to its base in Lille and intends to play a major role in these regions’ economic and social development, by creating jobs in the regions where it operates, in particular.
”Since I started in my role as head of Lille airport in January 2020, I have engaged in constructive and professional dialogue with Carlos Muñoz, CEO of Volotea, and his colleagues. I would like to extend my warmest thanks to them for their trust, which has led to this important next step of creating a base. All of the teams at Lille airport and its partners have welcomed this news really enthusiastically, and we will do everything that we can to ensure that Volotea will be able to undertake its business operations in Lille, and to provide our passengers with the best travel experience possible.
I’m delighted that this collective effort has now enabled us to support Volotea in setting up a long-term base in our region. A base will mean not only new destinations and travel opportunities, but also, let’s not forget, new local jobs being created straight away, which will deliver high added value”, declared Marc-André Gennart, Director General of Aéroport de Lille SAS.
