Airbus Air Bus: The Charter Service Between Hamburg & Toulouse

Not long ago, in 2019, Airbus selected Spanish low-cost carrier Volotea to operate a special charter service between Toulouse and Hamburg – two of the European planemaker’s largest sites. This service launched in November 2019 and sees two Airbus A319s dedicated to shuttling Airbus personnel back and forth from the two facilities.

Four flights per day

According to flight data, Volotea has two round-trip services (four flights) shuttling Airbus employees between Hamburg Finkenwerder and Toulouse International Airport. This service, known as the Airbus Charter Service, utilizes a dedicated pair of Airbus A319s. With 1,263km (785 miles) of distance, the service allows employees of Airbus to commute between the two facilities in just two hours. Their schedule sees one plane departing Hamburg and another from Toulouse at the same scheduled time: 07:00 local time. The second service of the day departs from each city at 17:15. While some aircraft production activity takes place on the weekend, the website ARGS notes that Volotea only serves this route from Monday to Friday.

Issuing a statement at the time of the service’s launch, Volotea’s leadership had the following to say:

A special configuration

The aircraft are configured differently from other jets operated by the airline. Registered as EC-NDG (MSN 3364) and EC-NDH (MSN 3403), the two jets are set up with 138 seats in a single class, which is less dense than the ‘regular’ Volotea A319s, which have 156 seats. Indeed, ARGS reports that these jets have extra-wide aisles for faster turnarounds. While details such as layout and seat pitch could not be found, the numbers might suggest that a large portion of the cabin is a 3×2 configuration – if wider aisles are the main goal.

As for aircraft history, EC-NDG and EC-NDH joined Volotea in April and May 2019, respectively. However, both aircraft were built in 2008, being delivered one month apart. The pair have parallel histories, first flying with now-defunct Hamburg International before moving on to fly with Pakistan’s AirBlue, Russia’s VIM Airlines, and Germania.

Photo: FlightRadar24.com

The other half of the Airbus-Volotea relationship

Around the same time as the launch of the Airbus Charter Service, Volotea, chose Airbus to train all of its pilots under a five-year contract. The training includes type-rating as well as long-term, recurrent training. The agreement is specifically linked to Volotea’s fleet of Airbus A319s, which at the moment is 20-strong. The remaining 21 aircraft flying for Volotea are Airbus A320-200s. The training agreement sees Volotea’s long-term use of Airbus’ full-flight simulators – located throughout Airbus’ Training Centre Network.

Sources: AIB Family Flights, FlightRadar24.com, ARGS, Aviator