Vueling Banks on Santander Success from Barcelona

Spanish low-cost carrier Vueling is to add the northern city of Santander to its network from its expanding Barcelona El Prat base during the coming Northern Summer and subsequent Northern Winter 2012/2013 schedules. The carrier will offer a four times weekly service from June 22, 2012, introducing around 40,000 additional seats into the market this year.

The airline will not be the only carrier on the route as Irish budget carrier Ryanair has been serving this domestic link since September 2010, while Air Nostrum has been providing flights on behalf of national carrier Iberia since July 1997, having served the market on a seasonal basis the previous year. Ryanair currently offers a daily service, although Air Nostrum’s own eleven times weekly offering is scheduled to stop at the end of this month. In the past year an estimated 174,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route, up 64.6 per cent on the previous year, due mainly to Ryanair’s arrival in the market.

Santander is a city with growing tourism demand owing to its beautiful urban beaches, landscapes and to its wide range of gastronomy, culture and leisure. In addition, it is the door to Cantabria, a community that has a wide range of rural and mountain tourism, and villages of great cultural interest including Comillas, San Vicente de la Barquera, Puente Viesgo, Santillana del Mar and Castro Urdiales.

“This was one of the most sought-after tourist destinations for our clients and an opportunity for people from Santander to access a wide range of European cities through our hub in Barcelona," said Javier Suárez, Director of Route Planning and Management, Vueling.

Vueling expects to generate a good mix of business and leisure clientele on its flights. Although highlighted as a low-cost carrier approximately 40 per cent of the airline’s passengers travel for business purposes and it is currently consolidating its operational model to focus on offering Premium services at competitive prices and combining various sales channels in order to offer services adapted to both leisure and business travellers.

This new route is a further step to improve the connectivity of Vueling’s Barcelona hub. In the first phase, the route will connect passengers to destinations in the Balearic Islands such as Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca with through ticketing being offered to all three destinations despite aircraft changes in Barcelona.