Vueling adds 31 new Routes in Summer 2015

The new routes include Barcelona – Ancona, Brindisi, Belfast City, Faro, Funchal and Trieste twice weekly, Birmingham three-times weekly, Basel, Dublin, Moscow Sheremetyevo and Rotterdam four-times weekly and Geneva five-times weekly.

Services operating from Rome include Karpathos, Larnaca, Lemnos, Mytilene and Pula once weekly, Bilabo, Kefallonia, Kos, Marrakech, Rennes and Reykjavik twice weekly, Bucharest, Budapest and Lampedusa three times weekly, and Stuttgart four-times weekly. The airline will also operate a service to Lyon five times weekly and London Gatwick ten times weekly, as well as a daily service to both Vienna and Nice.

Some of the routes have extra planned services to accommodate the busy summer season including Rome - Larnaca, Marrakech and Nice and Barcelona - Birmingham, Belfast City, Brindisi, and Dublin. Barcelona – Basel will see a gradual increase to a daily service by June 19, 2015, and Rome – Lampedusa will see a service decrease from three times weekly to once weekly from August 2, 2015.

You can see full details of all the new routes from Barcelona and Rome, with start dates and frequency details in this special post from our Airline Route blog: 'Vueling Plans New Routes in S15'.

The Barcelona – Belfast route will mark the first route to Northern Ireland operated by the budget Spanish airline. Belfast City Airport chief executive Brian Ambrose said the airport had ambitious plans for growth.

"It remains our aim to attract new airlines to Northern Ireland and facilitate more direct European routes from Belfast," he said.

"We are therefore delighted that Vueling has chosen to include Belfast City Airport as one of a select few UK airports in its plans to expand its network."

Dublin Airport has also welcomed its new route from Barcelona, which will operate three times weekly, increasing to five times weekly from May 31, 2015 and six times weekly from August 11, 2015 to September 1, 2015.

“We’re delighted to welcome Vueling to Ireland,” said Dublin Airport Managing Director Vincent Harrison. “This new Barcelona service will offer additional choice and convenience for both business and leisure passengers.”

The airline, which holds almost 40% of the market share at Barcelona El Prat Airport will add an additional 21,600 seats between Birmingham and Barcelona alone, and will give passengers a choice of more than 140 destinations on the Vueling network across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport’s Chief Executive, said, “This is fantastic news for travellers as it not only increases capacity to this popular business and leisure destination but also provides affordable fares, regular services and onward connections across Europe with Vueling; a very successful and popular European carrier."

Since the collapse of Spanair, Vueling has taken on a greater standing in the Spanish market and its links with Iberia and British Airways’ parent International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG) has enabled it to strengthen its operations at Barcelona El Prat Airport. Our analysis below, of schedule data shows that the carrier has boosted its capacity from Spain’s second city over the past ten years from 112,650 departure seats in 2004 to 8.1 million in 2013. This has seen its share of departure capacity grow from just 0.6 per cent in 2004 to a dominating 36.4 per cent in 2013.

Data provided by OAG

Meanwhile, Vueling has served the Rome Fiumicino market since December 2004 when it introduced flights to its Barcelona headquarters, but opened a formal base in the Italian capital city in March 2012, initially serving just eight destinations. It has significantly grown its network since then with eight additional aircraft designated on a network that grew this year to 33 destinations (and clearly highlighted in the chart, above) and will now grow further with the ambitious expansion plans for 2015.

Poppy Marello

Poppy joined the Routesonline team after successfully completing a degree in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University. Poppy has a passion for…