Meet Volotea: Spain's new airline

After months of rumors, we finally have a public announcement: Spain's new startup airline is called Volotea.

You have to be brave to start a new airline in Spain in the current economic climate, but its founders have done it before and their ability to pull an airline off the ground is beyond any doubt: Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros were the founders of Vueling (now under Iberia's wings) whereas Román Pané used to be a manging director at Futura (a now-defunct Spanish charter carrier). They are backed by CCMP Capital (investor also in JetBlue).

There is not much information about the scope of the project and its planned roll-out, but all points towards the new Barcelona-based airline operating a regional network in Spain, along the lines of UK's Flybe or Finland's Blue1. This market niche, relatively shielded from the two LCC giants, has seen significant corporate activity recently, with Flybe's leading the way.

Volotea will be competing with Air Nostrum (that operates regional flights on behalf of Iberia) and with Spain's still growing high speed rail network.

If you wish to see what Volotea's livery will look like there are some pictures on airliners.net (renewed chances for all those, like me, still waiting to fly for the first time on a Boeing 717!)

And of course, there is a Twitter account too, although it does not seem to have any public activity yet...