Morgan Davies
jacob uridil
HELENA NÚÑEZ ROTTA
Haikal Rahman
Marta Casaño Rodriguez
Sarah Jindan
University of Guelph
Universidad de Navarra
IPMI International Business School
Ruben Burga
Romina Hosseingholizadeh
Yang Hoong
Amelia Naim Indrajaya
Isabel Rodriguez Tejedo
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The innovation that Volotea has introduced is called “Voloterra” which is a combination of Volotea and Earth. The main goal of Volotea is to achieve a constant increase of efficiency in the amount of fuel consumption used to power their aircraft. Of the 17 UN SDG goals of sustainable development, Volotea incorporates #12 responsible consumption and production, and #13 climate action.
The Innovation presented by Volotea is called “Voloterra”. Voloterra consists of four action pillars that present the overall action and delivery of the innovation. The four pillars are business model, emission reduction, green transition and carbon offsetting. The first pillar is the business model which outlines the way Volotea conducts its flights and how it lowers its overall carbon footprint. Volotea successfully does this by only having their planes fly directly. By doing this, Volotea helps to significantly lower the carbon footprint of all of their passengers. Another point covered in the business model is the fact that Volotea will not fly anywhere if a train can do it in under four hours. This limits the amount of unneeded air travel and ensures all travel through the airline remains efficient. The second pillar is emission reduction. This pillar outlines Voltea's commitment to reduce 50% of emissions per passenger kilometre by the year 2030 compared to their 2012 levels. Volotea plans on doing this by introducing over 50 initiatives to reduce fuel consumption on their aeroplanes. Currently, the company has already reduced their overall emissions by a staggering 40%. The third pillar is green transition which outlines Volotea’s introduction into sustainable fuels. Volotea has introduced Sustainable Aviation Fuels and by doing so has reduced its overall fuel emissions by 80% when compared to regular jet fuel. The fourth pillar is carbon offsetting which is a commitment to offsetting 25% of their overall C02 emissions by the year 2025. The innovation presented by Volotea which is called “Voloterra” is an action plan that has the overall goal of making the airline more sustainable and eco-friendly. The airline has a four pillar action plan outlining the company's goals and successes.
Pedro stated that the motivation for this innovation was to “create a new airline capable of covering a gap in the air network not covered for traditional players such as legacy airlines such as Iberia, Air France, etc., or even for other low-cost airlines such as Ryanair or EasyJet”. The innovation of the company emerged from the founders of the airline as they discovered through meticulous research that “76% of European citizens were living in mid-sized cities, while on the other hand, 75% of airline traffic was from hub airports”. In other words, they noticed a gap in the market because Europeans needed to move in secondary transportation to larger hub cities. Volotea saw an opportunity to become a low-cost airline that connects European mid and small cities while providing a great travel experience in a sustainable manner. Volotea has been incredibly successful at doing this due to its clear mission which consists of being sustainable and offering direct flights between many of the great cities of Europe. The sheer level of convenience as well as being a sustainable airline has led Volotea to the success that we see today. Volotea is essentially an airline that saw an opportunity in a very lucrative market and not only chose to capitalize on the opportunity but they chose to be sustainable while they were doing it.
Volotea have created a more environmentally friendly travel routes that connect multiple cities all over Europe. They have reduced the amount of trains that are needed by replacing them with aircraft. Rather than running train for 4-5 hours that could be mainly empty they run a plain for 1-2 hours that could at 90-95% capacity. This has reduced the amount of fuel that is being used as well as reduced the need for train tracks that could go through environmentally important areas. They also use more environmentally friendly fuel that has reduced their carbon footprint. A short term effect of this innovation will be that transportation will become more efficient between major cities allowing the to communicate better. A long term effect of this innovation will be that less carbon dioxide will be released due to less fuel being burned reducing the effect of global warming.
This innovation has helped Volotea by decreasing the amount of fuel that is used per flight. If there is a reduction in fuel that is used, then it reduces the amount that they spend per flight increasing their profit. Of course, if they have more profit, they can reinvest into the business which could be why they have been able to expand their business to multiple cities across Europe. Ensuring that flights are near full capacity also helps Volotea maximise their profit as they will have fewer empty seats per plane. Another innovation that Volotea did was to create short-haul flights that would replace trips that people would do on multiple connecting trains. This has helped to reduce the fuel that people use by travelling by cutting their travelling hours down from 4-5 hours by train down to 1-2 hours by plane. This innovation has helped Volotea as they have managed to capture a new target market by taking a section of the short-haul flight market.
If Volotea reduce the amount of connecting flights people take and reduce the number of trains that run for multiple hours going from city to city then they reduce the amount of fuel that is being used. Having quick and cheap options to get from city to city, such as Volotea, allows customers to reduce their travel time meaning that they are more likely to take the flight over the train. If they do this less fuel will be used meaning that less carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide impacts society as a whole through impacting global warming as well as marine life. Not only has this innovation helped society become more efficient travellers by reducing travel time but it has also reduced the amount of pollution that is released through travelling.
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Pedro Casano, Chief people officer
Volotea is a small airline company located in Spain. The airline prides itself on being a sustainable airline that is always looking for new ways to innovate and improve sustainability within the airline. The airline has 41 planes in operation and has recently surpassed 50 million passengers. Volotea flies to over 100 cities within 16 countries with flights ranging from 30 minutes to 5 hours.