Vitoria doubles airlines with Volotea’s arrival; airport’s winter routes up by 50%

The city of Vitoria is in the Basque Country, approximately 65 kilometres from Bilbao and 118 kilometres from the French border. Various airports are located within a roughly 90-minute radius.

According to the airport’s statistics, 264,000 passengers were welcomed in 2024. While that was a drop year-over-year, it was its second-best year since 1991.

The reduction was influenced by the withdrawal of Binter Canarias in 2023. According to Cirium’s schedule data, it operated from Gran Canaria and Tenerife TFN.

Iberia Regional reintroduced time-limited summer seasonal offerings from Palma de Mallorca in 2023, with routes added to Menorca in 2024 and Ibiza and Valencia the following year. However, the airline pulled out in 2025.

Volotea arrived in 2025

The most significant development recently was the arrival of Volotea. The LCC, which focuses on small and medium-sized cities in Southern Europe, arrived on 6 November 2025. It has two routes: Barcelona (4-weekly) and Madrid (mainly 4-weekly). Vitoria is one of 18 Spanish airports in the carrier’s network in W25.

Cirium indicates that Barcelona was last served by Helitt’s ATR 72s in 2012/2013. Before that, it was in the hands of Iberia Regional until 2009. Meanwhile, the Spanish capital was served by Iberia Regional until 2011. Nowadays, some trains take as little as 3h 30m to Madrid.

Volotea has 35% of Vitoria’s seats in W25. The airport’s only other passenger operator is Ryanair, which has the remaining 65%. Cirium data shows that Vitoria is the ULCC’s 17th most-served Spanish airport out of 23 in its network this winter. It has four routes: Alicante, Brussels CRL, Milan BGY and Seville. In S26, Malaga and Palma de Mallorca will return.

Seven markets have been removed

Based on having at least 20-weekly one-way flights, Vitoria has lost flights to these airports in the past 20 years:

• Cologne (Ryanair 2017-2024)
• Dublin (Ryanair in 2007)
• Ibiza (Air Europa in 2010, Iberia Regional in 2018-2019 and 2025)
• Gran Canaria (Binter Canarias 2020-2023)
• London STN (Ryanair in 2006-2007)
• Tenerife TFN (Binter Canarias 2020-2022)
• Tenerife TFS (Ryanair 2017-2020)