[SwissExPat]

I gave up No frills airlines in 1999 after my bad experience with Ryanair. Generally I stick with Swiss and BA (and Emirates when going east). Last week I went on a warm weather trip to Lanzarotte ex ZRH and decided that I would see how Vueling would perform on what was a direct flight with convenient departure times on both out and return. I thought that being part of BA it could not be too bad.

What a shambles.

Outward, the flight was fine but the check in was unbelievable. They operated 3 desks and then when the queue of PAX was at maybe 100, they closed one and dropped down to 2. Unbeknown to me, there was also a Vueling flight departing to BCN at a similar time and this was a common check in queue for both flight. I had queued for maybe 30 minutes and was now behind 20 PAX waiting to be checked in when suddenly all the PAX behind me rushed forward and crammed around the 2 serving agents. I have never seen this before, ever. I believe that some gate agent said that PAX for the earlier departing Lanzarotte flight should come to the front. It was mayhem and there were no staff either Swissport there to manage the melee. I just about made my flight.

On the return flight, we boarded the plane and seemed ready to close up 5 minutes early but I noticed a lot of activity up front with the despatcher talking into a handset and entering the cockpit. We sat there for 30 minutes. The captain came out and said there would be a delay because “a wheel needed to be changed” and we would be brought back into the terminal (by bus) and the delay was expected to be 1 hour.

Back inside the terminal, the gate agents then asked for 7 volunteers to go on a later flight. Now the story was that the “Plane was too heavy”. Within an hour, 7 volunteers were found. We got back on the plane and took off over 2.5 hours late. During all of this, I could see the plane on the tarmac and did not observe any work being done on a wheel change.

On-board, no hot water was available (or sparkling water) so no Tea/coffee was available on the 4 hour flight. Sandwiches were sold out after 10 rows.

On arrival in ZRH, we arrived at the baggage carrousel where a Swissport agent was waiting with forms to fill out for baggage forwarding because the entire luggage was left in Lanzarotte.

The above serves as a reminder of why I should never fly on so called Low Cost airlines.

[MartynSinclair]

How long did it take to get your bags returned?

[SwissExPat]

FLight landed Saturday evening, delivered Tuesday midday, so nearly 3 days.

[capetonianm]

I don’t have time now to write about my bad experiences with Vueling, the fifth rate subsidiary of a fourth rate airline which is owned by a third rate group. How an airline like Aer Lingus can have any sort of agreement with this shower is beyond me. If push came to shove I’d rather fly on Ryanair than Vueling. Or walk!

Vueling is by far the worst, most unreliable, and shoddy airline I’ve flown with, I’ve used them twice in the last 3 years or so when there’s been no other option, and have made a point of booking on BA’s website using the BA codeshare flight number, and paying the higher fare, rather than on Vueling, just so that I could complain to BA and not to Vueling whose customer service makes BA look like a paragon of virtue.

The staff who aren’t rude and arrogant enough to work for Iberia filter down to the cesspit that is Vueling.

In case anyone thinks I’m anti-Spanish, that is not the case. Half my family are Spanish and Catalan, I’ve lived in Spain, and I speak Spanish.

P.S. when they started they were not bad at all.

[JonathanCohen09]

Hi SwissExpat,
Really sorry to hear about your poor experience with Vueling, my Partners son had a similarly poor experience when he flew with them to Amsterdam from Luton.

In defence of LCC’s or no frills carriers, I enjoy a very good relationship with Easyjet who i fly with at least 3 or 4 times a month and I have to say that I have had very few poor experiences and in terms of what I pay for the flights and the service i get in return I am very happy. They are not perfect by any means but any problems that I have experienced have been dealt with quickly and efficiently, it may be because of how much I fly with them but I am not sure.

In the past I was gold with BA, Platinum with AA before the tie up with BA and i was a Circle with Swiss before they were acquired by Lufthansa and they are still my airline of choice if i need a full service carrier. I gave up on BA a long time ago and am now frequent flyer agnostic and will use the airline that offers me the best price for the route and time of year that i am flying. I have become a fan of Norwegian out of Gatwick for long haul. Their Premium cabin is very good and for the price it is excellent value in my opinion, i am sure that others will disagree but based on your post and the experience of others Vueling is on my no fly list.

Happy Easter to all and safe travels.

[Cedric_Statherby]

In a strange way I find this thread quite reassuring. Two things come out of the comments: firstly that not all LCCs are the same (I find EasyJet a competent and professional airline who usually get things right, and do seem to try to rectify things when they go wrong – as inevitably they sometimes will), and secondly there are some airlines who have got their service offering so badly wrong that people refuse to fly on them at any price.

This shows that people can filter on service quality instead of just on price, and we are not condemned to a race to the bottom in which the only way to succeed as an airline is rock-bottom service, rock-bottom customer support but rock-bottom prices. EasyJet and Norwegian will no doubt be glad to hear that, Ryanair show some signs that even they have heard it, and if Vueling haven’t yet – well, if they are driven out of the skies it will improve the average flight experience for all.

[SwissExPat]

FYI, I have once flown on Easyjet. I have found them to be okay to fly with.

My main problem with them was that they cancelled my flight 15 days before I flew. {I believe this was yield management and the 15 days meant that they did not need to compensate me (14 days and under would have been a cash event)]

They dont really serve ZRH (LGW and LTN only) so It is easy to avoid them given SWISS and BA offering (like MartynSinclair I use avios on this trunk route with BA).

[FDOS_UK]

Out of interest…

What do BA and Vueling have in common?

A certain A.Cruz as CEO (past CEO in the case of Vueling).

The guy is a walking disaster from a service delivery perspective.

[capetonianm]

What do BA and Vueling have in common?

A certain A.Cruz as CEO (past CEO in the case of Vuelinqg).

Rearrange the following words to form a well-known phrase:

hit nail head the on you.

[GivingupBA]

SwissExPat, thanks very much for the helpful review (and sorry to hear about your experiences).

I like Cedric’s point too – that not all LCCs are the same.

[STORMIN']

Following on from FDOS_UK’s response:

And before that, with American where he allegedly didn’t cover himself with glory. How do people like this manage to find employment at all, let alone at the helm of a prestigious company like British Airways as it was before he got his hands on it?

[capetonianm]

The directors and shareholders are happy with him because he’s cutting costs to the bone. The fact that he is dehumanising, the airline alienating both customers and staff, meaning that the cost cutting is not a sustainable improvement doesn’t appear to matter to people like him.

The sad reality of today’s commercial environment appears to be that for most large companies the only thing that matters is bottom line profitability.

[K1ngston]

Firstly I do not work for Vueling, I am not associated with them in anyway and I am normally the first to complain if something goes wrong…

However back at the end of February I had to fly to Barcelona for business and I decided rather than pay the exorbitant amount to fly SQ direct I would fly BA through LHR, transfer to LGW and then fly to BCN

This was done with Vueling, I asked at the time whether they were any good and I was given various responses, but without any other way or indeed sitting in LHR for 5 hours I decided to take the plunge!

I have to say the whole experience in both directions, including check in, getting on the plane, arrival, luggage, departure etc and arrival were perfectly acceptable for a LCC, the service was as I expected if not slightly better and before this thread would have recommended anyone to try them.

One let down and this really wasnt the fault of the airline, it was through the very cold snap you guy had back in Feb/Mar and the plane luggage door somehow got stuck shut and we had to wait a while for our luggage, however with some colleagues unable to fly at all due to the weather even that was not a major issue!

I think this highlights that on any given day there can be exceptions to the norm and even the best carriers can have a poor day, I have experienced much worse on First World International airlines, so just wanted to add a bit of balance ….

[MartynSinclair]

I think any loco that runs on time, deals with passengers fairly, has decent pricing and doesn’t heard passengers like cattle (and bags arrive) – will get 5 stars. The ‘unloving’ generally starts when things go wrong and the company seem unable to put things right without going into meltdown. The OP’s story in the thread is a prime example.

One of the first areas of discontentment for me (and I have only flown Vueling once – & thankfully the return flight was cancelled and I was rerouted on BA) , was having a BA flight number on my boarding pass, was refused entry into the BA lounge…

[FDOS_UK]

so just wanted to add a bit of balance

I don’t get the need to ‘add balance’, to be honest.

Even the most frequent flyers on here (and I’m not one of them) have a set of data points that are statistically insignificant and thus, by definition, will never represent a balanced view – that can cab only be achieved by statistical analysis of mass data.

So a negative and positive post do not represent ‘balance’, they are just insignificant data points that are not representative of the population.

The OPs post reflects his experience on the day and his opinion of low cost airlines is just that – others will have very different experiences and opinions, e.g. I’ve had mainly decent flights on Ryanair (with a sample size in the hundreds), many others have had rotten experiences.

Emotions are intrinsic to our relationship with a brand (+ve or -ve), so there will always be differences of opinion.

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