Aegean’s strategic investment and cooperation with the Spanish airline Volotea is another important step to further strengthen its extroversion.
Following this investment, the largest domestic carrier will enhance its presence and its extroversion in major markets of Southern Europe, such as France, Spain and Italy, since 92% of Volotea’s activity focuses on these markets.
“AEGEAN and Volotea have different business models and product philosophies but to a large extent they operate in a complementary way and share the same customer-centric philosophy. We invest in Volotea as we believe in the company’s strategy and growth prospects, but also aim to strengthen the distribution and coverage of important markets (such as France, Italy and Spain), as well as the possibility of offering direct connections to the regional airports of Greece,” the chairman of the Board of Directors of AEGEAN, Eftyhios Vassilakis, said.
On his part, Volotea’s founder and CEO, Carlos Muñoz, said: “It is a very important day for Volotea as the capital increase marks an important financial milestone for us, which was achieved with the support of our shareholders and the AEGEAN investment. We have known and worked with AEGEAN and its team for many years now and share the same philosophy, values and vision for the European aviation industry. We are particularly happy about this new step and look forward to a successful collaboration.”
The advantages of the investment
AEGEAN expects a return on its investment in 3-5 years from the participation, while at the same time strengthening its presence and its extroversion in large markets of Southern Europe such as France, Spain and Italy, given that 92% of Volotea’s activity focuses on specific markets. It utilises the comparative advantages of Volotea, which is a low-cost company with a specialised and efficient operating model. Volotea stands out for its unique comparative efficiency advantages that set it apart from other low-cost airlines. Finally, AEGEAN in this way participates in the general trend of strategic participations, partnerships, acquisitions and consolidations recorded in the European aviation market, particularly after Covid. All major or full service airlines have either created, acquired, or cooperate with low-cost companies that are more suitable for specific parts of the network, specific consumer needs.
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
