Spain, from East to West: Barcelona - A Coruña | Vueling Airlines A320CEO
May 24, 2017, 1:01 am
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Spain, from East to West: Barcelona - A Coruña | Vueling Airlines A320CEO
THE AIRLINE
Vueling Airlines, created on 2004 at Barcelona, is nowadays one of the biggest low cost in all Europe, 100% subsidiary of IAG (International Airlines Group) as Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus and Level. Vueling has 2 main hubs (at Barcelona-El Prat and Rome-Fiumicino) and lots of bases around Europe (but especially in Spain). At 22/May/2017 its fleet is composed by 5 A319 (to be able to operate in short runways airports, like Florence or San Sebastian), 89 A320, and 14 A321.
As Barcelona is the Vueling's main hub, this airline is the complete dominant airline here. It operates from the new Terminal 1 with all other major airlines in the world, leaving the Terminal 2 for all other low-cost airlines, charter airlines and "traditional airlines" that don't make any connections at BCN airport.
AT BARCELONA AIRPORT
We arrived at Terminal 2 with Eurowings from Vienna (you can check the trip report here: http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewt...?f=9&t=1363163). There is a 24h free shuttle bus between both terminals. The bad point is that you must go out the air one, so it will be necessary to pass once again the security control at Terminal 1.
Terminal 1 is huge and, despite it was inaugurated in 2009, it looks completely new. It's crystal walls gives tons of natural light to all the building. There are 101 boarding gates, 6 Vip lounges, 1 gym, 1 spa, 1 barber shop... It's perfect to make a connecting flight.
BOARDING AND TAKEOFF
Promptly, we started boarding our A320 Sharklets at gate B40. After 15 minutes we were already taxiing to runway 25L and taking off, enjoying the famous banking at 500 ft. altitude. If you've flown from Barcelona, you know that I'm talking about. That turn to the left that close to the terrain is just awesome...
Our initial climbing was along the coastline. After some minutes over the Mediterranean Sea, we turned right, close to Reus airport, to enter again to the Peninsula and start our flight plan to A Coruña airport.
CRUISE
The pay-to-eat catering service started once we were established on cruise level, close to the Pyrenees (mountains between Spain and France). In my opinion, Vueling should improve their catering offer. It's soo small compared with almost any other airline, especially, compared to its main competitor: Ryanair. Both airlines charge you for the catering, but once it's like that, the airline should offer a minimum variety of food.
Apart from the Catering, the cruise was very pleasant. We flew directly, through the middle of Spain, without going over the north coastline (that would be so beautiful). That route is used especially on the return flight of this route (LCG-BCN) but sometimes is also used in the BCN-LCG. Sadly, today wasn't that day.
APPROACH AND LANDING
As soon as we were getting closer to our destination, we started to see the storms that were reported at Coruña. The approach was between huge clouds until 5.000-6.000 altitude.
The approach to this airport is particularly nice because it takes you from the north to the south over all the coastline from Ferrol (where it is a navy base) to Coruña. I'm sure you'll enjoy this low flight over the land and sea.
We landed of time at Coruña and we disembarked by stairs, as both 2 jetways at the airport were being used by another Vueling (the daily flight to London-Heathrow) and by an Air Europa E195 (flight from Madrid).
I hope you'll enjoy the Video-Report!
VIDEO-REPORT:
