Review of Vueling Airlines flight Barcelona → Tel Aviv in Economy

INTRODUCTION

Hello!
After 5 great days in Barcelona, it was the time to come back to Israel.
As opposed to the inbound flight with Arkia (Smart wings), this flight was better on any way!

PHOTOS FROM BARCELONA

BCN AIRPORT - TERMINAL 1

We arrived to the airport 4 hours before the flight, though 2 hours are enough for this airport, according to Vueling website.

Why we arrived so early?
Because I wanted to do some plane spotting, but we couldn't find the spotting terrace.

BCN airport entrance:

Departures information in BCN airport, with our flight in the second line:

The airport:

We tried to use the self check in counters but we couldn't use them, since we got some error.
Though we arrived earlier to the airport (2 hours before the check in time), we talked with the Vueling crew in the airport and they agreed to do the check in before the time.

Here's my boarding pass;

After the hand baggage check, which went pretty fast (15 minutes approximately) we arrived to the duty free area:

We tried to find the spotting terrace inside the airport (no one knew where it's located).
So I did some spotting through the airport windows, it's not the best thing, but better than nothing.

Emirates Boeing 777-300ER:

Cygnus Air Boeing 757-200 and Fedex Boeing 757-200:

Vueling Airbus A321:

During the time we looked for the spotting terrace, we spotted this vending machine near the gates:

Prices were reasonable for airport, 1.8 Euro for water bottle, 3 Euro for Coca Cola bottle.

We came back to the duty free area:

I must say that BCN airport is one of the best airports I saw in Europe, a lot of shops, many places to eat, at least one lounge (We saw only one) and remained me TLV airport.

Some photos from the duty free shop, you can see the prices as well:

The duty free shop was equipped well, with variety of products.

We wanted to find something to eat in the airport and maybe take a look on more shops, but on 21:00 many of the shops were closed.

I also spotted this Vueling Airbus A320 with the special color scheme of visit Tenerife:

The dining area:

The prices were reasonable for airport as well.

I went to the toilets:

As you can see, the toilets weren't so clean.

I also spotted this aircraft, Mitsubishi CRJ-1000 operated for Iberia regional by Air Nostrum:

We made our way to the passport control and our gate area:

The passport control went very fast, and soon we were on our way to our gate in D concourse.

I was 21:45 but almost everything was closed on this area.
The duty free shop and Burger King were closed, only one coffee shop and Relay shop were open.

We went to the coffee shop:

The prices were pretty high here, similar to what we would pay in TLV airport…
The dining area was partially closed, some tables were blocked, but it makes sense to do so when our flight was the only one on this concourse.

I went to the toilets before boarding:

This time, the cleaning was much better.

Then came the boarding time!
Before boarding the aircraft, the ground crew checked that everyone wear a mask.

Gate view:

Aircraft information:
Vueling (with Level color scheme)
Airbus A320-214
EC-MYB
In service with Vueling since June 2018, but leased to Level from March 2019 to November 2020
This aircraft also was in the fleets of the following airlines:
Niki (October 2006 - January 2017) as OE-LEU
Air Berlin (January 2017 - December 2017) as D-ABHH
Niki (December 2017 - January 2018) as OE-LOH
Level (March 2019 - November 2020) as OE-LVR

Making it almost 16 years old when I flew on it

FLIGHT EXPERIENCE - BCN TO TLV

We boarded to the aircraft and went to our seat, the boarding process went flawlessly and was fast.

The legroom:

The legroom was very good and no one sat in the aisle seat, meaning we could fill like a poor European business class passengers ;)

Window view:

Hello there! It's 4X-EHC, Elal Boeing 737-900ER.
I flew on this specific aircraft from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv and had a great experience!

There are some residues that this aircraft used to be in the fleet of a German speaking country:

I also found that this aircraft retrofitted with USB sockets! Pretty cool for an aircraft from 2006!

We pushed back from our gate on 23:05.

BCN terminal view:

Vueling A320:

Level Airbus A330:

Take off video:

And shortly after take off:

10 minutes into the flight, I also spotted another nice thing about the cabin - the old reading lights were replaced with LED!
It looks that this aircraft went through a big cabin retrofitting.
The seats were new as well.

20 minutes into the flight, I went to the toilets:

As you can see, they were in good condition and clean.

The seat pocket content includes:
1. Sickness bag
2. Safety instructions
3. Buy on board menu

The prices were reasonable in my opinion.
30 minutes into the flight, the buy on board service started, I bought water with gas for 3 Euro:

I tried to get some sleep but couldn't.
I became bored and hungry, so I went to the rear galley and asked for something to eat.

Cabin view:

I bought this vegan snack box for 6.5 Euro:

This small meal was nice,
but the houmous looked pretty bad, so I left it as is.

The flight was boring, but uneventful.

On 4 am we saw the Israeli coast line:

The descent to the airport was nice, not aggressive or very fast.

Landing video:

We landed 10 minutes before our scheduled landing time.

Gate view:

Deboarding has done by rows, first of all the 5 first lines were deboarded, after them the 5-10 lines. etc.

Cabin view during deboarding:

TLV AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3

We went toward the passport control and the baggage claim area:

Not before visiting the toilets :)

This time, they were very clean! Well done!

The passport control process for Israeli citizens also changed, shortly after the toilets there were machines to scan your passport and get entry certificate.
This process has done in the past, but not on this place. It was just before the baggage claim area.

Continuing our journey toward the baggage claim area:

And the baggage claim area:

We arrived to the baggage claim area 20 minutes after deboarding, so everything went pretty fast.
Our suitcases arrived very fast, we waited 5 minutes for them.

On our way to the taxi station:

NEXT FLIGHT REPORTS

Flights to\from Europe:
LY571 (TLV-OTP)
RO153 (OTP-TLV)

Flights to\from Canada:
AC81 (TLV-YYZ)
AC80 (YYZ-TLV)

Domestic flights in Canada:
F8 1821 (YYZ-YYC)
WS654 (YYC-YYZ)

I hope that you enjoyed and hope to see you again in my future flight reports!