Volotea launches Barcelona–Madrid flights as Spain's AVE crisis grows

Another airline is stepping into the gap left by Spain's wobbling high-speed trains. Volotea, a carrier best known for linking small and mid-sized cities, will open a Barcelona–Madrid route on 27 November.

It will run two flights a day until 31 March, and tickets are already on sale.

What happened?

Volotea announced the new route on Monday. It joins moves by Vueling, which has extended its Barcelona–Madrid service until summer, and Iberia, which has raised its flights to Andalusia by 50%.

"With this route we bring two key cities closer and offer our customers a new way to connect them at a particularly necessary moment," said Gabriel Schmilovich, Volotea's director of strategy.

The airline is registered in Asturias but has its operational base in Barcelona, where it has been present for 14 years. It flies more than 20 routes from the city, mostly to other European countries, and has carried two million passengers there since 2021. Until now, its only domestic links from Barcelona were to Asturias, Murcia and Vitoria.

Why now?

The AVE (Spain's high-speed rail network) is going through a confidence crisis after the accident at Urda. Several companies are cutting back on train travel because they no longer trust it.

But planes can't simply take over. According to the Cambra de Barcelona (the city's chamber of commerce), replacing high-speed rail with flights would take 140 flights a day, far above current levels. Iberia itself admits that aeroplanes cannot make up for the train.

What came before?

The crisis didn't start at Urda. The accident at Adamuz (Córdoba) in January had already shaken trust in the AVE. In the first months of the year, air shuttle passengers between Barcelona and Madrid rose 4.2%, while train travellers fell by more than 10%.

The Urda accident, the second major one this year, has deepened that trend.

What's next?

For now, Volotea's flights are planned until the end of March. Whether the route survives after that will depend on how long the AVE crisis lasts, though the airline has not said so itself.