Spanish LCC Volotea has expanded its offering between Algeria and France, where it has seven airport bases, with a second route linking the countries.

The new route launched this month connecting Constantine (CZL), a city in northeast Algeria, and Marseille (MRS), a city in southern France, will be flown 1X-weekly.

The Barcelona (BCN)-based airline, which specializes in connecting secondary cities in Europe, already operates a route between MRS and Oran (ORN) in Algeria. Volotea said the new route follows on the success of the MRS-ORN route, which was launched in December 2021.

Load factors have hit 95% on the MRS-ORN route, the carrier said. As a result, Volotea this month increased frequencies from 3X-weekly to 5X-weekly on the route.

"These two routes illustrate our ambition to develop the French market,” Volotea international development manager Céline Lacroix said, pointing out that 50% of the airline’s capacity now touches France. “More than 10,000 passengers have chosen to travel with us between Marseille and Oran since its launch, proving the need for the route" and giving Volotea the justification for starting a second route between MRS and Algeria.

Volotea said it is now the second-largest airline departing from MRS in terms of destinations served, with more than 20 routes offered form the airport to cities in Algeria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy and Spain.

The airline opened its seventh French base at Lille Airport (LIL) on April 1.