Review of Vueling Airlines flight Paris Barcelona in Economy

Airline Vueling Airlines
Flight VY8247
Class Economy
Seat 09F
Aircraft Airbus A320
Flight time 01:45
Take-off 07 Sep 15, 14:35
Arrival at 07 Sep 15, 16:20
VY   #18 out of 22 Low-cost airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 196 reviews
oriolgutierrez
Published on 9th September 2015
BCN - BRU SN3696 Y / AIRBUS A319-100 - 21/08/2015: http://flight-report.com/en/report-11517.html
BRU - JFK SN501 Y / AIRBUS A330-300 - 22/08/2015: http://flight-report.com/en/report-11519.html
YUL - CDG AC870 Y / BOEING 777-300ER - 06/09/2015: http://flight-report.com/en/report-11525.html
CDG - BCN VY8247 Y / AIRBUS A320-200 - 07/09/2014: HERE

Preface: We decided to take a trip to the US as we wanted to visit some relatives in Connecticut and the city of Boston. We then found a nice one-week one-way Canada & New England cruise from Boston to Montreal and decided to add the cruise to the trip to CT and Boston to make the most of our trip to America.
I started looking for flight good deals from Barcelona but prices were extremely expensive and decided to look for flights out of other European cities. It turned out that Brussels was one of the cities where the cheapest flights departed from so I looked for BRU-JFK/BOS and YUL-BRU. BRU-BOS required a layover and coming from BCN, two layovers would be too much so decided to fly to New York and book a transfer to Connecticut. It all came down then to BRU-JFK and YUL-BRU, the cheapest option was to layover in Paris returning from Montreal and I looked for the same flights in a multi-flight ticket, it turned out to be as cheap as with the layover in Brussels and the CDG-BRU leg was not the day after we landed in Paris. We then would not have to go stop in Paris and Brussels on our way back to Barcelona as the CDG-YUL leg would not be used. After finding and booking the two long-haul legs (BRU-JFK YUL-CDG) I then started looking into options to get to Brussels and return from Paris. Getting to Brussels was pretty easy on Brussels Airlines as they were the cheapest option available, even cheaper than Vueling or Ryanair so it was a no-brainer for us even if flying them required us to overnight in Brussels. On our way back from Paris, we could fly Air France, EasyJet, Vueling or take the train, we decided to fly back from CDG as it was the airport from which our flight from YUL arrived, Air France was too expensive and not worth it in my opinion for a 1:30 flight and by booking with Vueling I could reduce the fare using some Avios I had.
Finally we had our routing done (BCN-BRU-JFK YUL-CDG-BCN).

I booked this leg of our routing separately through Iberia's website and discounted 80 euros of the whole fare by using some Avios I had. This was the best option to get to Barcelona after being scheduled to arrive at CDG at 09:35 AM. Even though we had to go from Terminal 2A to Terminal 3, I thought we'd have more than enough with 5 hours between the arrival of AC870 and the departure of this flight VY8247.
At about 10 AM we had our suitcases and were on our way to Terminal 3. We walked towards the end of the Terminal through many different airline check-in counters, most of them were of airlines belonging to Skyteam. I spotted a MEA Airbus A330-200 probably for Beirut.
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We then used an elevator to go down to the driverless train platform.
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We were at Terminal 2 and we had to go to Terminal 3 so there was one stop on our way to T3 which was the Parking.
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We were then at the TGV area at CDG and followed the instructions for Terminal 3.
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We still had to walk for 5 minutes which was surprising taking into consideration CDG is such a big and international airport, not a good start.
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Terminal 3 was a huge disappointment, tiny and dirty terminal with nothing to do.
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We went to the departures screen and found out we still had to wait to check our bags as the check-in counters were closed because it was still too early. There were 3 Vueling flights within an hour, one to Madrid, ours to Barcelona and another one to Santiago.
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Finally after waiting for an hour in a seating area next to the Vueling check-in counters, they were finally opened. We queued for 10 minutes and checked our bags, it was quite easy.
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Security controls were very crowded which resulted in a half an hour wait. I couldn't understand it because there were so few flights departing from T3, terribly bad organised. I hoped to find some restaurants and shops after clearing security controls but no, there was only a tiny duty-free shop. What a nightmare of Terminal, it felt more like a bus terminal than an airport terminal.
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I slept for a while because I didn't get too much sleep on my flight from Montréal to Paris and I was quite tired. It was then time to start boarding, our flight was delayed by 45 minutes so we started boarding at around 2:40 PM when we were supposed to leave CDG at 2:35 PM.
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We used a bus to get to our airplane. Our airplane today was going to be EC-MAH, a practically new Airbus A320-200 (1.5 years old) equipped with sharklets.
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I sat in my window seat 09F and took some pictures of the sharklet. View of another Vueling Airbus A320-200 heading to Madrid.
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We left our parking spot at around 3:10 PM and taxied to the runway. Smartwings Boeing 737-800 for Prague.
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CDG's airport traffic control tower.
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Pics of some planes taxiing to the gate. Qatar Airbus A380-800 for Doha, Egyptair Airbus A330-200 for Cairo and Air Austral Boeing 777-300ER for Saint Denis.

Cabin crew seats for take off.
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V1, rotate. Positive climb, gear up. Flying through the French countryside.
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Cruising at 37000 feet.
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View of Vueling's Airbus A320-200 new cabin interior. It looks modern and clean but the legroom is tight.
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We were offered some drinks or snacks but everything was pretty expensive and for such a short flight I thought it wasn't worth to order anything.
After about an hour of flight, the captain announced we would be landing in about 25 minutes so we started our descent into Barcelona Airport.

Descending around the area of Sitges.
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Last views of the wing and the beautiful sharklet.
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Flaps full, landing gear down.
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Views of Barcelona Airport's Terminal 1 shortly before touching down.
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Landed in Barcelona at 16:42 PM. 22 minutes of delay.
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Taxiing to our gate. Another Vueling Airbus A320-200 for Mahon (Menorca).
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The airport was very crowded.
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Walking towards the baggage drop-off area.
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We then walked to the parking and drove back home.


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Verdict

Vueling Airlines

5.6/10
Cabin6.0
Cabin crew7.5
Entertainment/wifi4.0
Buy-on-board menu5.0

Paris - CDG

3.5/10
Efficiency4.0
Access5.0
Services2.0
Cleanliness3.0

Barcelona - BCN

8.8/10
Efficiency9.0
Access8.5
Services9.5
Cleanliness8.0

Conclusion

Taking into consideration the price of the flight, I cannot ask for more. Everyone knows what flying on a low-cost carrier is like, no meals no drinks included in your fare and Vueling is no exception. Legroom is quite tight and the cabin isn't very comfortable but for a 1h 30minutes flight it was bearable. Booking through Iberia.com I payed the same price than if I had booked with Vueling but had one free checked bag and seat selection for free so when booking a Vueling flight, try to look at it through Iberia's website and see if you can do the same I did. I have flown many times with Vueling and it is a decent option if you want to fly to Barcelona from many destinations around Europe, they are known here in Barcelona for their usual delays but fortunately, I have never experienced one of their long delays.

Information on the route Paris (CDG) Barcelona (BCN)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 57 avis concernant 6 compagnies sur la ligne Paris (CDG) → Barcelona (BCN).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Air France avec 7.5/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 1 heures et 41 minutes.

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2 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 146240 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6668 Comments
    Thanks for this last FR in the series and for the entire series of very good FRs. I have not seen many reports on Vueling, but from what I've seen, it seems pretty decent for a low-cost. I've seen several times that the seat pitch is tight, but fine for a short flight.

    These days even the legacy flag carriers are becoming like low-costs anyway, so for short intra-European flights, there's really no point in flying with a traditional carrier unless you are connecting to a long-haul. I think this is the new Business model of big airlines in Europe now. As far as the Spanish market is concerned, it seems that both Iberia and Air Europa operate like Low-costs with no free service on short-haul, so really there's no difference.

    Thanks again for sharing this series! Saludos
    • Comment 324823 by
      oriolgutierrez AUTHOR 20 Comments
      I am pleased to hear that you liked my series of FRs. Thanks for reading all of them!
      Vueling is like any other low-cost carrier in Europe and I couldn't agree more with what you said. Even though Brussels Airlines is a legacy carrier, during our short BCN-BRU flight we weren't offered any meal or drink as meals and drinks weren't included in the price of the ticket. The experience as a result was pretty similar except for the legroom, one of Vueling's main weaknesses.

      ¡Saludos desde Barcelona!

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