Volotea’s 11 million annual passengers can now purchase travel insurance that compensates them automatically for flight delays—no paperwork, no claims forms, no proof of purchase required. The European airline announced the partnership with insurtech Koala on Tuesday, marking one of the first major deployments since CarTrawler acquired the Paris-based firm in 2025.
For CarTrawler, the deal represents an early test of whether its multi-product platform strategy actually works.
The Dublin-based company built its business powering car rental services for airlines and travel brands worldwide. Acquiring Koala was meant to expand that footprint beyond mobility—turning CarTrawler into a one-stop shop for ancillary revenue streams. Volotea already uses CarTrawler for car hire, a relationship that dates back to 2023. Now the airline is activating the insurance side of the platform, precisely the cross-selling opportunity CarTrawler pitched to investors when it bought Koala.
What Volotea passengers get is insurance that behaves nothing like traditional travel cover. Flight disruption products monitor delays and cancellations in real time. Eligible customers receive compensation proactively—the system detects the disruption and processes payment without passengers needing to file claims or submit boarding passes. Baggage protection works similarly: delayed or lost luggage triggers automated resolution rather than requiring travellers to prove their loss with receipts and documentation.
The products go live within Volotea’s booking flow immediately, though passengers can also add coverage after purchasing tickets. All offerings support multiple languages across the airline’s network, which spans 110 airports and 21 bases in small and mid-sized European cities including Naples, Bordeaux, Venice and Bilbao.
Volotea has grown into one of Europe’s fastest-expanding carriers since Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros—who previously founded Vueling—launched the airline in 2011. The carrier hit 80 million total passengers in December 2025 and plans to operate more than 430 routes this year, over half of them exclusive. That growth trajectory makes ancillary revenue critical: low-cost carriers typically generate 20-30% of total revenue from add-ons like insurance, priority boarding and baggage fees.
Koala’s pitch centres on eliminating what the company calls “traditional insurance pain points”—the paperwork, waiting periods and claim rejections that make passengers reluctant to purchase coverage in the first place. The firm has signed 70-plus travel brands across 17 countries by promising 100% automated operations. No manual claims processing means lower costs and faster payouts, which in theory should increase conversion rates when airlines offer the products at checkout.
Léo Tordjman, Koala’s chief executive, framed the Volotea deal as closing a credibility gap. “We’re excited to partner with Volotea to close the gap between travel insurance expectations and reality,” he said. “By building fully automated products from scratch, we remove the traditional friction of insurance while creating new revenue opportunities for our partners and seamless protection for customers at every stage of their journey.”
Álex Baró, Volotea’s deputy chief commercial officer, emphasised integration and simplicity. “We’re delighted to partner with Koala to offer our passengers a new generation of protection solutions that are simple, flexible and fully integrated into the booking journey,” Baró said. “At Volotea, we’re committed to enhancing the customer experience at every stage of travel, and this partnership allows us to provide greater peace of mind while continuing to expand our ancillary offering in a seamless and customer-centric way.”
The partnership arrives as airlines face mounting pressure to diversify revenue while passengers grow increasingly sceptical of travel insurance that rarely pays out. Koala’s automation-first approach attempts to solve both problems simultaneously—making insurance a genuinely useful product whilst generating incremental income for carriers. Whether other CarTrawler airline partners adopt similar insurance offerings will signal how seriously the industry takes that proposition.
Volotea operates a fleet of 44-46 Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft and employs more than 2,250 staff. The airline holds a four-star Skytrax rating and won recognition as Best Low-Cost Airline in Europe in 2023 and 2024. Through its Voloterra sustainability programme, the carrier has cut CO₂ emissions per passenger-kilometre by 51% since 2012, targeting a 55-60% reduction by 2030.
For now, the Volotea rollout offers CarTrawler tangible evidence that its acquisition thesis wasn’t just investor presentation rhetoric. Airlines already trust the company for car rental. Adding insurance to that relationship—particularly insurance that requires no operational overhead from the carrier—makes the platform stickier. The question is whether automation can deliver on its promise when tens of thousands of passengers start filing claims during Europe’s next wave of air traffic chaos.
