Vueling?

I'm travelling solo and want to get from Seville to Paris. Vueling has the best time, but it appears to get bad reviews. Transavia has the best price, but gets me into Paris at 11pm and that is not too appealing to me. Another possibility is to take the train to Madrid and fly Easy Jet from there.

Thanks in advance!

This is a short flight, no time to stress over poor reveiws. I would travel with the best flight times

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Depends how recent the Veuling reviews are and if those complaints would affect you. Veuling have recently been taken over by IAG, the owner of BA and Iberia (and Iberia has improved a lot in the last couple of months IMO)

The flight is a short one, and if it gets you where you need to be, when you want to be there, then I would seriously consider them.

Thanks for both replies! That's what my gut was telling me - I just needed some reassurance before I paid the euros.

Not the most recent review, but I flew Vueling from Barcelona to Pisa back in the Spring of 2010. It was a perfectly fine flight. Honestly, no better/worse than my EasyJet/CityJet/any other European regional flight. You just have to read all their "rules" and be prepared to adhere to them. Same with EasyJet. The flights are short - you'll get there fine ;)

I handle flights for Vueling on a daily base and I can only give you 1 advice: if the price isn't much, much cheaper, avoid this airline at all costs!

Not only quality wise, but they have a serious safety issue.

I can agree with the other that you don't need to look for service if it's such a short flight.

But often, the cabin crew aren't even interested in how many people (and bags!!) are onboard. Yes, you read it correct. They often leave without knowing the exact figures.

They also have a lot of delays (and I mean a lot!!) and swap their airplanes to a smaller version without any notification in advance often.

At the airport where I work, we have a flight that is supposed to be a 189-seater and they send an 160-seater for example almost every week. Needless to say, a lot of people are bumped without the gate crew even knowing what is going on until that flight actually arrives at the gate. And it most cases, they don't have another option but to fly the day after. They will also not put you on another airline in such cases, as they have no agreements.

Imho, if you can, take another airline like Easyjet. They're lowcost as well, but have far better On-Time Performance rates and they ALWAYS make sure their counts are correct. Even for a lowcost airline, they will make a delay if they are not sure how many people/bags they got onboard.

Please be very(!) considerate when flying Vueling. I hope this reply did not came too late...

I handle flights for Vueling on a daily base and I can only give you 1 advice: if the price isn't much, much cheaper, avoid this airline at all costs!

Not only quality wise, but they have a serious safety issue.

I can agree with the other that you don't need to look for service if it's such a short flight.

But often, the cabin crew aren't even interested in how many people (and bags!!) are onboard. Yes, you read it correct. They often leave without knowing the exact figures.

They also have a lot of delays (and I mean a lot!!) and swap their airplanes to a smaller version without any notification in advance often.

 

At the airport where I work, we have a flight that is supposed to be a 189-seater and they send an 160-seater for example almost every week. Needless to say, a lot of people are bumped without the gate crew even knowing what is going on until that flight actually arrives at the gate. And it most cases, they don't have another option but to fly the day after. They will also not put you on another airline in such cases, as they have no agreements.

 

Imho, if you can, take another airline like Easyjet. They're lowcost as well, but have far better On-Time Performance rates and they ALWAYS make sure their counts are correct. Even for a lowcost airline, they will make a delay if they are not sure how many people/bags they got onboard.

Please be very(!) considerate when flying Vueling. I hope this reply did not came too late...

unfortunately, i purchased my ticket yesterday :( I'm not sure I can cancel it.

Maybe some trip reports might help you decide -

http://fly2travel.boardingarea.com/vueling-airlines-a320-200-bcn-rak-flight-review/

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187497-i44-k6498605-Vueling_Airlines-Barcelona_Catalonia.html

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/trip_reports/read.main/207892/

Vueling is owned by IAG (British Airways + Iberia) and has recently upgraded its fleet and service by offering business class (Euro-shorthaul style, basically they don't sell the middle seat, add "free" food and a much more generous baggage allowance) and most recent reviews are better than previous ones. Certainly I wouldn't switch to Easyjet or some such - which won't offer things like interline baggage service, interline connections, etc.

Flew with them twice - no complaints at all.

Maybe some trip reports might help you decide -

 

http://fly2travel.boardingarea.com/vueling-airlines-a320-200-bcn-rak-flight-review/

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187497-i44-k6498605-Vueling_Airlines-Barcelona_Catalonia.html

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/trip_reports/read.main/207892/

 

Vueling is owned by IAG (British Airways + Iberia) and has recently upgraded its fleet and service by offering business class (Euro-shorthaul style, basically they don't sell the middle seat, add "free" food and a much more generous baggage allowance) and most recent reviews are better than previous ones. Certainly I wouldn't switch to Easyjet or some such - which won't offer things like interline baggage service, interline connections, etc.

Thank you for the info and the links!

Flew with them twice - no complaints at all.

Thanks! Good to know!

My parents fly a lot, and my father used to fly hundreds of thousands of miles a year on business, sometimes on the most obscure airlines. In June, they flew to Bilbao with Vueling, the only airline to fly there direct. They both said they had never been on such a sh*tty flight. My mum is 1.62m, and she could not get her legs in between the seats. Her comment: "if we would have crashed nobody would have been able to get out". Everything was really bad, and they vowed they would never go near Vueling ever again.

Transavia is a full KLM daughter. Although they are a budget airline, their planes are checked in and serviced by KLM.

We just booked two Air Malta flights-Prague/Malta and Malta/Catania. How is Air Malta.

Looking to replace a Vueling with a Volotea for travel within Italy. Anyone know if they are any better?

Well, I'm a supervisor for Air Malta, so I can highly advise you to fly with them ;-)

No, seriously, they are a good airline. One of the few where you'll get a meal in economy class as well. Depending on the duration of your flight, either a snack of hot meal will be provided. Not sure for the Prague flight, but the one to Catania will have the snack, as that's a short hop from Malta.

Cabin crew overall is very friendly and willing to help.

Air Malta doesn't compare with Vueling. They are a different type of airline as well.

Please read my post above for Vueling. While others never had problems with them, I know what practices they use and will NEVER fly them. While they may have a good price, I will never risk my safety over a few euro's. And believe me, I combine my job as station supervisor for Air Malta with a job at the handling agent for Vueling. So it's not that I am biased towards one of those 2, because I work for both of them.

If you need any help regarding your Air Malta flights, please let me know and I will be happy to help you.

We booked our Air Malta flights two weeks ago-thanks

The price was very good and there was no funny business, ie the price was the price. Unlike some other airlines, there were no add on items that doubled the price!

We booked our Air Malta flights two weeks ago-thanks

 

The price was very good and there was no funny business, ie the price was the price. Unlike some other airlines, there were no add on items that doubled the price!

That is true. We are a very straight airline with honest communication to our passengers. No frills, but a solid airline like the ones back in the day before low-cost took over the domestic flights: bag allowance, a meal/snack on board are rare things on local flights these days.

We did two Air Malta flights in the last two weeks. Prague-Malta and Malta-Catania.

Excellent service, clean planes, good staff. They were very price competitive.

Airbus 329/320's.

We just booked seats on a Vueling flight from Palermo to Rome for next Tuesday so we are about to find out how the service is.

The price was right. I notice that it is a codeshare with another airline but Vueling is the operator.

I usually book with Lufthansa and don't mind Munich or Frankfurt with enough connection time. If your luggage weight fits within the Low Cost Carrier scheme then fine but if not you will end up paying a pretty penny and would do better flying on Iberia or Lufthansa.

On Lufthansa they offer a decent snack and wine or beer. If Vueling is delayed they really don't have any interline flights as far as I know.

That is true, travelplus. They don't even rebook you on Iberia flights (which is the main company behind Vueling). And with Vueling, they often are delayed without a reasonable explanation. Even we as ground crew, rarely get any info on the delays of those flights.

Just some follow up: My flight on Vueling left on schedule from Seville and arrived on time in Paris. I used the economy plus (don't remember if that is exactly what it was called) but it allowed for a checked piece of luggage so there were no surprise extra costs.

We were on a Vueling flight today. Palermo to Rome. The flight was fine. Cabin was in good condition-very clean. Staff great from check in to flight crew. The did a wok through passenger count twice.

Bottom line.. Would we fly them again? YES.

Safety issue?. Not at all. Trainning, maintenance, procedures are the same as for Iberia which has a second to none safety record. They have been flying for ages, hundreds of flights everyday with no safety concern of accidents at all.

Then I invite you to run along some gates with me at my home airport. More then welcome to.

I'm not saying technical issues or crew knowledge is a problem. It's the attitude of the captain when an on-time departure is about to be missed. They leave without knowing who exactly is onboard and sometimes don't even bother about offloading bags. Often. That may not be the case in its home country Spain, but it sure is the case here in Belgium.

The company I partialy work for handles both VY & IB and their handling procedures are nothing alike. They don't even use the same DCS system.

I'm not saying technical issues or crew knowledge is a problem. It's the attitude of the captain when an on-time departure is about to be missed. They leave without knowing who exactly is onboard and sometimes don't even bother about offloading bags. Often. That may not be the case in its home country Spain, but it sure is the case here in Belgium.

If so, are you reporting these incidents? Even if through a confidential system?

It does violate both VY's SOP's and Belgian/European laws to leave without an exactly confirmed pax on board. And under no circumstances can bags travel if their respective owners aren't on board (except for rush bags; but that's a different story). We file in reports every single time through our supervisors (and also written through a system only employees can read) who pass it on to VY. Not once, not twice, but several times a week. And it's not just 1 or 2 captains. It's a widespread problem with VY. A lot of VY captains take risks like this.

I simply do not get it how a pretty large company can get away with these practices.

And it's not just their lousy attention for security. It's also very unrealiable service on VY's part. As a handling agent, we can only do so much as VY allows us to.

As I've said in a previous post, they frequently send much smaller planes for already overbooked flights. Leaving 25 pax stranded at our airport because they sent a small plane instead of the one which was scheduled happened much more often as it should have. They did not even took families and pax with connecting flights into account. They just randomly rebooked pax without us knowing about anything about 15 mins. before the plane actually gets into BRU.

However, this practice has been reduced since they've made BRU a base. But it still happens at other airports.

Just 'cause I'm curious: Are you working with/for VY as well? :-)