Vueling
 

Vueling awarded 'best airline website' at Budget Airline Award ceremony, scopping an award for third consecutive year >>> Vueling Named 'Best Website' at Industry Awards

I do admit Vuelings site is pretty easy to use.

Any news about more A319's for them.

Does anyone know what days the new bases open at Nantes and Palma?

Are there any new aircraft due to the airline and after JKK would there not be demand as they have added a lot but not so many aircraft.

Several Ex-JKK A320's are joining the Vueling fleet. All of which have been painted at DUB & will be delivered to BCN.

EI-EUF ex EC-IEJ to become EC-LQL. Delivery 30Mar
EI-EUK ex EC-INM to become EC-LQJ. Delivered 22Mar
EI-EUM ex EC-IVG to become EC-LQN. Delivery 27Mar
EI-EUN ex EC-IZK to become EC-LQM. Delivery 30Mar
EI-EUP ex EC-INC to become EC-LQK. Delivered 23Mar

No doubt more will follow!

EI-EUK departed DUB for BCN at 22.24.

Do you mean JNC?

A few more Spanair aircraft have joined the Vueling fleet. Im not ure if any more are due but its a possibility. They have also now leased an A319 off Air Berlin and got one of Air Berlin too.

Would be nice to see vueling more in the UK market :)

Vueling have announced new route from Malaga to Cardiff from 2nd April 2013 which will be operated by an A320 aircraft.

Heard also they have a 'large' order coming up shortly as well.

The article on todays Vueling launch of Summer 2013 routes to Cardiff can be found here

With all the Spanish links that Abertis have, is there no rumour of Vuelling coming to BFS? If they have survived Cardiff I'm sure they can manage in Belfast.

Don't be silly Belfast management only know how to talk to easyjet and scare other airlines off

Interesting to see how successful and widely acknowledged for their efforts VY are... Vueling sweeps four awards at World Low Cost Airlines Congress

PP :ok:

Unfortunately it doesn't quite work like that and don't Cardiff Airport know it. easyjet is a customer at both Luton & Belfast Int but not Cardiff unless the weather is poor.

According to a recent find the Palma de Mallorca route from Cardiff Airport is still under evaluation. However regardless of this there will be a 35% increase in the number of seats offered from Cardiff Airport in Summer 2013 compared to this year.

Click to read article

Taken from the FlightCheck book i bought back earlier this month:

Low cost carrier Vueling has reiterated that it will make a long anticipated narrowbody order by the end of the summer.

Chief Executive officer Alex Cruz, speaking to analysists during a second quarter results call on 1st August said ''Our project continues. We are in phase three of out evaluation. We are on track and we hope to make a decision after the summer, maybe in September or October depending on the date of our board meeting.''

The Barcelona based airline has added 14 Airbus A320 family jets to its operation since the demise of Spanair earlier this year, taking its fleet to 55 A320's and three A319's. The majority of the new additions are on three year operating leases.

Vueling will end of the summer with a total fleet of 60 aircraft, but may need to renew its enture fleet at the beginning of 2015.

''We are pleased with data and proposals submitted by the three vendors Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier and we are still in the negotiation phase. It is an important project for Vueling'' says Cruz.

Vueling
 

Looks like a big announcement about the future of Vueling is happening at 6. New routes, fare system and aircraft set to be announced.

Vuelinglive


Sorry just noticed there was a Vueling thread already, can the mods merge the 2.

Spanish Low cost airline Vueling have this evening announced the 26 new routes from its Barcelona base.

March 31st
Barcelona – Dortmund = 4x weekly
Barcelona – Dresden = 4x weekly
Barcelona – Dusseldorf = 10x weekly
Barcelona – Frankfurt = 12x weekly
Barcelona – Fuerteventura = 2x weekly
Barcelona – Gothenburg = 3x weekly
Barcelona – Hanover = 3x weekly
Barcelona – London Gatwick = 14x weekly
Barcelona – Oslo = 4x weekly
Barcelona – Pamplona = 6x weekly
Barcelona – Rennes = 3x weekly
Barcelona – Stuttgart = 6x weekly
Barcelona – Valladolid = 4x weekly

April 1st
Barcelona – Bari = 4x weekly

April 2nd
Barcelona – Catania = 3x weekly

April 3rd
Barcelona – Banjul = 2x weekly
Barcelona – Bergen = 2x weekly

May 13th
Barcelona – Helsinki = 3x weekly

May 16th
Barcelona – Casablanca = 4x weekly
Barcelona – Tangier = 3x weekly

May 17th
Barcelona – Luxembourg = 4x weekly

May 19th
Barcelona – Fez = 2x weekly
Barcelona – Nador = 2x weekly

June 23rd
Barcelona – Rhodes = 2x weekly

June 24th
Barcelona – Sofia = 2x weekly

June 26th
Barcelona – Kos = 1x weekly

Barcelona is a nice city, but there are plenty of other cities in Europe which are both substantial and pleasant to visit.
Is it now becoming overserved in the European short haul market, and at risk of being a victim of over-hype if/when the bubble bursts ?

Discuss

@DavidJohnson

worth discussion indeed.

Two points I'd like to throw in:
1) Many more Spanish people live now abroad than a few years ago (ever heard Spanish speakers outside London 5 years ago? Walk through the likes of Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester now...) due to the poor employment prospects in their home country. So it's not only BCN tourists / business visitors using these flights.
2) Above point will not justify this serious amount of additional capacity - agreed. So thinking about it earlier, I felt most comfortably with taking the view that this is a massive muscle exercise by IB&Co as owners of Vueling to defend their home turf against FR and EZY, the likes of 4U/LH from Germany, etc.

I think you'll find that what's happening here is that Iberia are going to pull the few remaining international services they still have from BCN and make it a low cost hub for their inferior subsidiary Vueling. This will disgust the Catalans (OFSO where are you?).

Whilst it is hard to imagine that a product can be inferior to Iberia, Vueling achieves that. A great shame because until Iberia pulled them down into the gutter with them, they were a good carrier.

Surprised at this choice, given BA's presence on the route (return to) and easyJet's position, this would not have been an obvious choice.

Be interesting to see how Ryanair react to Vueling's ambitious expansion plans outlined today.

EI-BUD

Ryanair will have to made a announsment at BCN after this. I would expect that any airports that FR fly to will be added/moved from GRO at BCN.

Surprised at Gatwick or London in general? London is a major gap in the Vueling network from Barcelona. Then when you consider the fact Vueling also run a hub at BCN, London becomes a critical market for them IMO

Pull what? Right now IB mainline operate just one international service from BCN - Sao Paulo - and that is being axed at the end of this month anyway

(There are some IB regional routes from BCN as well, but is it IB or Air Nostrum who decides on these?)

Yeah surprised at LGW, it will be hard fought. They are going into easyJet turf and I suspect that they will get a strong challenge from them. Yes it is a critical market, but if there is over capacity on LGW route is this going to be a viable route. Just my view.

Depends if Vueling look at BCN-LGW in isolation, or if they look at it in a wider 'network perspective'. Won't be easy for Vueling, but as the smallest operator on the route it's probably Monarch that will feel the pressure most

IAG offering 113m euros for Vueling
 

From The Telegraph:

International Airlines Group, owner of British Airways and Iberia, has mounted a €113m (£90m) offer to take full control of Spanish low-cost carrier, Vueling, as it looks to restructure its loss-making business in Spain.
The airlines giant already owns 45.85pc of Barcelona-based Vueling, Spain’s second largest domestic carrier, through Iberia. But IAG is offering €7 a share for the remaining stake, which will be acquired through a newly-created vehicle.
A €7-a-share offer would value the 54.15pc IAG doesn’t already own in Vueling at €113m. A deal on those terms would value Vueling at €209.3m, according to data from Reuters.
Analysts believe full ownership of Vueling would allow IAG to accelerate its expansion into the low-cost market in Spain after the roll-out of its low-cost brand, Iberia Express, was complicated by a dispute with pilots union SEPLA.
The Madrid government earlier this year appointed an arbitrator to resolve the conflict, which had led to costly strike action, but the Spanish High Court recently found that the arbitration process was flawed.
Analysts said a full ownership deal would potentially allow IAG to side-step the dispute over Iberia Express and feed its long-haul network through the Vueling business. IAG said Vueling would continue to be operated as a separate business and its chief executive would report directly to IAG boss Willie Walsh.
James Hollins, Investec analyst, said the airlines group could use Vueling’s 59-aircraft fleet “to effectively take a key role in the transformation of IAG’s Spanish short-haul programme, subsuming the nascent Iberia Express operations into its own”.
IAG unveiled the offer ahead of third-quarter results on Friday.
Unions expect the company to announce as many as 7,000 job cuts at Iberia, which made a €263m operating loss in the first half.

The company is expanding fairly rapidly now in Germany, Italy and Europe in General from Barcelona following on from France last year. Africa now seem's to be part of expansion and Florence seem's to have a single based aircraft from March 2013 with 4 new routes to Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg and London-Heathrow.

They are also expanding into the UK.

Edingburgh, Cardiff, Gatwick & Heathrow will all have flights in Summer 2013. I believe Southampton did have flights in Summer 2012 but unsure if they are returning in 2013.

And reports from passengers using them at Cardiff is that they are a verry good airline.

Any chance of a BFS-MAD route if they are expanding in the UK?

Vueling will not be returning to Southampton in 2013; Flybe have since taken up the route.

In my own view this will not happen. They are concentrating expansion from Barcelona at the moment with expansion also taking place at Bilbao, Florence and Malaga.

Vueling visit to Bournemouth
 

Visiting yesterday was a Vyeling A320 having talks with Bournemouth Airport.

Picture of the visiting Airbus with Thank you titles HERE

With all due respect to Bournemouth, why does Vueling feel it could make a route from Barcelona worth it when it couldn't even sustain one to Southampton (which is better connected)?

Why would you fly an empty A320 into Hurn for 'talks'?

So if it wasn't 'for talks' what was the reason for flying an empty A320 into Hurn
and out again a few hours later?

It arrived from Barcelona with a positioning flight call sign VLG905P, stayed by the terminal for 6 hours and returned to Barcelona as VLG906P.

Any more plausible suggestions?

LT

charter? . . . . .

Flying empty planes isn´t that akward, in Portugal in high season, TAP Portugal fly several empty planes to Madeira Island and they comeback fully loaded with cargo and passengers, I when I say several, I remember on the 1st of January, thay had planes leaving Madeira Island each 15 minutes (and yes I´m only talking about TAP, not easyJet or some other airline..)

The replies so far seem to be missing the point of why this flight seemed unusual. As far as I know, and I may be wrong, it flew empty in both directions. So unlikely to be a charter and it was not positioning in empty to pick up passengers (nor bringing in passengers and flying out empty).

LT

So if it flew in empty, then Flight Deck must be doing the so called 'route' negotiations !!!!

It certainly does appear to have been 'empty' on both sectors so while it does seem somewhat extravagant for their commercial people to visit BOH in that way, it must be a possibility I suppose. It's point of departure and destination from BOH might give a clue, if anyone knows.

And before anyone gets excited about the Vueling A320 which arrived at SEN a few days ago, it was for maintenance with ATC Lasham. I did speak with Vueling at last year's French Connect about SEN, but only to acquaint them with the developments there and I don't think any operational interest actually exists.