Volotea-Eurowings, joint sale of flights (with an eye to a possible merger) – Corriere.it
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What for now is a simple commercial agreement for the — cross — sale of tickets may tomorrow become a real merger. Which takes into account the low costs of one company and the wider connection network of the other company. The Spanish low-cost airline Volotea and the leisure carrier (or value, as it prefers to be called) Eurowings, of the Lufthansa group, have signed a memorandum of understanding that will lead to a reciprocal sales agreement on 140 routes: 100 operated by Eurowings and 40 by Volotea . Of the latter, 8 will be new and will also include Italy: Verona-Berlin (from 26 May) and Florence-Hamburg (from 10 October).
The agreement
The top management of the two companies – the president of Volotea Carlos Muoz and the managing director of Eurowings Jens Bischof – are keen to underline, several times, that there is no marriage on the horizon. But, during the presentation of the initiative, it can be glimpsed that in recent months the parties have also been working on something more. In the coming days, the two companies will launch the so-called cross-selling of the 140 routes without overlapping: Eurowings flights can be purchased on the Volotea website and those of Volotea on the Eurowings web platform.
The synergies
After developing Eurowings to Eastern and Northern Europe, the next step was to expand our range of routes to Southern Europe and for this we have been working on the agreement with Volotea, comments Bischof. It starts with the simplest things, continues the CEO of Eurowings, without doing those complicated things like carrying luggage. Our company connects non-stop medium-sized European cities and poorly served by other carriers, adds Muoz, from Volotea. Which explains how this move allows Volotea to enter the German market, one of the richest in the world.
The future
Is this business partnership — which involves no codeshare — the start of something more serious? The two leaders believe that further study is plausible, but do not provide details. Analysts consulted by Courier they believe that the homogeneous fleet – both companies use Airbus A320s – and the decidedly low operating costs of Volotea, but not of Eurowings, could in the future lead the Lufthansa group to consider a merger. According to the estimates of Courier on intra-European flights Volotea spends almost 59 euros to fly each seat, while Eurowings pays even 100 euros.
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