Low-cost airline «Vueling Airlines»

Vueling Airlines is a Spanish airline, based in Barcelona, ​​Spain. A company owned by IAG. It is the largest airline within the Spanish territory in number of destinations and by fleet size, and the second by number of passengers transported within the Spanish territory, only surpassed by the Irish Ryanair.

It began operations in July 2004 based in Barcelona as an independent airline, although after its merger with Clickair in 2009 its main shareholder became Iberia and, after the takeover bid presented in July 2013 by IAG, Vueling remained in the hands of the controlled holding company by the merger of Iberia and British Airways. Born as a low-cost airline, after the bankruptcy of one of its competitors, Spanair, and due to the great indirect growth of Ryanair in Barcelona, ​​it has been operating as a kind of traditional airline, although without losing its identity as low-cost.

Vueling’s main base since its creation and also its connection center since May 2010 is in Barcelona, ​​while it has numerous operating bases in the rest of Spain at the airports of Alicante, Bilbao, Gran Canaria, Tenerife North, Madrid, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Valencia.

It also has two international connection centers in Rome-Fiumicino (Italy) and at the Paris-Orly Airport (France). It is the only low-cost airline in Europe that operates connecting flights, something very typical among low-cost airlines in America.

The origins of Vueling Airlines go back to the end of 2002, when entrepreneurs Sue Smith and Eduardo Fairen convinced Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros (also founders of Volotea, an airline of which they are currently CEO and General Manager, respectively) to the feasibility of carrying out a low Cost Operation focused on Spain. Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros then constituted a development company that financed the market and economic feasibility studies necessary to demonstrate the viability of the project.

During the following twelve months, the business plan was prepared and the branding and corporate image were developed. At the same time, work was done on the search for strategic partners that would consolidate the project at an industrial, business and financial level: initially, the company was owned by a shareholder divided between Apax Partners, which controlled 40%, Inversiones Hemisferio (family office of the family Lara, owner of Grupo Planeta) with 30%, the founders of the company itself, who controlled 23%, and V.A. Investor, the investment company of the directors of the New York airline JetBlue Airways, which had 7%. Carlos Muñoz was appointed CEO and Lázaro Ros CEO.

Vueling Airlines began operations on July 1, 2004 with a fleet made up of two Airbus A320 aircraft, which operated the service between Barcelona, ​​Paris, Brussels, Palma de Mallorca and Ibiza. The inaugural flight departed from Barcelona on the 1st to Ibiza.

In 2005, Madrid became the second base for Vueling. Later in 2007, it was decided to set up a base at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport. In December of that same year it was decided to open a fourth base in Seville.

As of December 1, 2006, the airline began trading on the Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Bilbao and Valencia stock exchanges. But the good results of the new airline soon turned upside down. In the first quarter of 2007, it went from a profit of 9.7 million euros the previous year to a loss of 22.01 million euros. This occurred in a context of an increase in the number of travelers of 85.35% and sales revenue by only 65.5% to 59.83 million euros. In June 2007, half a year after going public, Apax Partners, interested in participating in an Iberia purchase operation, sold its 20.97% stake in Vueling. This transaction caused the price of the company’s shares to fall to one-sixth of its starting price.

The unsustainable economic-financial situation forced a solution to be sought, which was the merger with Clickair, a subsidiary company for Iberia’s low-cost flights. This merger was completed in July 2009. After the merger, Iberia came to control 45.85% of the capital, the rest being divided between Nefinsa, with 4.15%; retailers, 18.20%; Spanish institutions, 10.40% and foreign institutions, 21.40%.

Vueling had a loss of 3.3 million euros in the first half of 2009, compared to a profit of 1.1 million in the same period of the previous year.

However, in the third half of 2010, it obtained net profits of 4.3 million euros and a turnover of 2.7 million euros.

In 2011, Vueling posted positive results of just 1.6 million euros due, according to analysts, to high crude oil prices, a drop in flight occupancy during the first half of the year and competition from Ryanair and Spanair in Barcelona. Even so, this has not prevented the airline from presenting its ambitious growth and fleet renewal plans.

At the end of 2011, Vueling announced a major expansion plan for Barcelona that included the acquisition of 6 new Airbus aircraft, which would be incorporated into the 26 permanently based at Barcelona airport, a fact that entails the creation of 23 new routes from the airport Barcelona, ​​many of them seasonal, and Vueling’s entry into the Scandinavian market, where Spanair was Vueling’s main competitor, which is the main operator.

In January 2012, it was also announced that at the end of the same month a tender would be held for the acquisition of an order of up to 50 new aircraft from the three major world operators Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier, with the models Airbus A320neo, Boeing 737 MAX and Bombardier CSeries, respectively. After Spanair’s bankruptcy in late January, Vueling canceled its orders for new aircraft to retain some of the old Spanair. It was also used to keep the routes that had run out of flights, with this, the number of destinations increased by 30%.

In April 2012, they announced the creation of a new base of operations at the Rome-Fiumicino airport, a second hub, after Barcelona.

In October 2012, a new expansion was announced at the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, which included the creation of 28 new routes from the airport, thus operating more than 100 destinations from the Barcelona airport, the creation of the Excellence class for the business passenger (similar to a Business class of traditional airlines), Wi-Fi service on board in the new planes and the creation of a new type of low-cost, to make way for a conversion into a network company, thus becoming the Spanish airline that operates the largest number of destinations.

On December 5, 2012, Vueling announced the opening of a new operations base from which they fly from Florence to seven destinations in Europe: Hamburg, Barcelona, ​​Berlin, Copenhagen, London-Heathrow, Madrid and Paris-Orly. On October 25, 2013, Vueling opens its first domestic route in Italy: Florence to Catania. On November 20, 2013, Vueling announces a further expansion of Florence: a second Airbus A319 will be based, new routes open to Bari, Cagliari, Catania, Ibiza, Mykonos, Santorini and Palermo.

In the last quarter of 2015, it received its first A321s, increasing capacity by 40 passengers compared to the A320s. It currently has 15 A321s, most of which operate routes to the Canary Islands, medium-haul and high-demand flights.

In April 2016, Vueling and LATAM signed a codeshare agreement for the Barcelona — Sao Paulo route.

During the weekend of July 1, 2016, the airline had serious problems due to delays and cancellations, forcing the Ministry of Development to open a file to investigate what happened.

In 2016, Vueling is the first company in the world to acquire the Airbus «A320 Spaceflex» model, which adapts the plane’s lavatories to make them accessible to people with reduced mobility and increases capacity from 180 to 186 seats, thanks to the new location of the rear toilets, in the tail cone of the aircraft.

During the first months of 2016, Álex Cruz leaves Vueling and becomes the CEO of British Airways. His position is occupied by Javier Sánchez-Prieto.

In 2020, Vueling announced that Marco Sansavini, coming from Iberia, would take over the position of CEO of the airline.