Vueling Airlines

Vueling Airlines

IATA VY ICAO VLG Callsign VUELING
Founded	2004
Hubs	El Prat Airport, Barcelona Barajas Airport, Madrid, Seville
Frequent flyer program	Punto
Fleet size	41
Destinations	23
Company slogan	flying today means Vueling
Parent company	Iberia, Vueling Airlines Group
Headquarters	Barcelona, Spain
Key people	Sue Smith (Founder), Josep Piqué (CEO)
Website	www.vueling.com

Vueling Airbus A320

Vueling Airlines (BMAD: VLG) is a low-fare airline based in Barcelona, Spain. It serves destinations in Europe and the western Mediterranean. Its main base is Barcelona Airport, with additional hubs at Valencia Airport and Madrid's Barajas Airport.

History

Vueling was established in 2004 and commenced operations on 1 July 2004. The fleet consisted of two aircraft, serving the Barcelona-Ibiza route. The company first recorded a profit in December 2005, only 18 months after the start of operations.

Initially, major shareholders of Vueling Airlines were Apax Partners (40%), Inversiones Hemisferio (Grupo Planeta) (30%), Equipo gestor (23%) and V.A. Investor (JetBlue Airways) (7%). During its nascent stages, the company's General Manager was Lázaro Ros, while Carlos Muñoz was CEO. In November 2007, Vueling appointed managing director of Spanair Lars Nygaard as CEO to replace Carlos Muñoz, who remained as a member of the Board of Directors.

Although in 2006 Vueling was chosen as the third-best European low-fares airline, behind Air Berlin and easyJet,^[1] it did not maintain this position in 2007.^[2]

Vueling started restructuring in 2007-2008 to enhance profitability as the airline started to lose money and its owners were afraid that otherwise it might not survive in the fierce competition among European low-cost operators.^{[citation needed]}

In June 2008, Vueling and Clickair announced their intention to merge^[3]. In January 2009, Iberia a minority shareholder in Clickair announced it would take over the merged airline and gradually integrate the airline into the Iberia Airlines identity.^[4]

In mid-July of 2009 the merger of Vueling and Clickair was completed.^[5] The new merged airline operates under the Vueling brand. It has become Spain's second largest carrier flying more than 10 million passengers a year to almost 50 destinations.

On August 5, 2009 at 10:36h Flight 9127, an Airbus A320-200, departing Paris-Orly Airport for Alicante, Spain caught fire in one engine while exiting the ramp. Eight people were slightly injured during the controlled evacuation using the evacuation slides. ^[6][7]

Destinations

Fleet

The Vueling Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of 9 July 2009) ^[8]:

At 28 February 2009, the average age of the Vueling Airlines fleet is 3 years.^[9]

External links

• Vueling Airlines official website

References

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