Review of Vueling Airlines flight Bilbao → London in Economy

Who are Vueling?

Founded in February 2004, the Barcelona based Vueling is a Spanish low cost airline with an interesting 20 year history!

The airline began to expand its reach in Spain, which culminated in the airline merging with another up and coming Spanish budget airline called Clickair, the merger left Vueling as the surviving airline brand and they took on Clickair's CEO Alex Cruz (take note of this one), the new airline waded the storm of the 2008 Recession which saw multiple Spanish airlines perish into bankruptcy including the troubled Spanair, Air Comet and Iberworld.

2013 rolls around and the airline found themselves acquired by International Airlines Group which also owns British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia. The intention was to take on Vueling and make it the Group's in-house low cost airline, a similar arrangement to Transavia for KLM-Air France & Lufthansa Group's Eurowings/Germanwings. Despite been with IAG for over 10 years now and an airline using the Avios program for its Frequent Flyer program, Vueling is not a member of the OneWorld Alliance as of May 2024.

In 2016, the airline's long-time CEO Alex Cruz moved across to take over British Airways as their CEO for a "controversial" four year period, the airline also began to expand outside of Spain and making bases in Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Orly, Rome Fiumicino and in London (First in Luton then at Gatwick). The airline operates across Europe as well as into North Africa and the Middle East.

The airline operates over 125 Airbus A320-family aircraft including the Airbus A319, Airbus A320ceo, Airbus A321ceo, Airbus A320neo and Airbus A321neo. The Airbus A320-family has been the constant aircraft of choice across the airlines entire 20 year history.

Vueling VY7292 (BIO-LGW)

I travelled from Bilbao city centre to the Airport on the Bus service that runs frequently, however a massive football celebration was taking place in the city the day I arrived, so the bus route wasn't running through the city except from its starting point at the Central Bus Station through to the Airport itself. I made it with plenty of time to spare, and with a bit of help I located the Airport stand which the bus operates and it was a straight forward trip that took about half an hour.

Bilbao Airport is one of the main Airports serving the North of Spain alongside Santander, its also a major port city and gets a lot of Ferry and Cruise traffic as well, this surely helps the Airport's position in the region.

Quite a modern Terminal building greets you, with plenty of shade provided by the overhanging structure around the entrance to the Airport, I noticed there is a window landside that overlooks what appears to be a few remote stands, but they're probably only for Bombardier CRJ or ATR aircraft that operate here. The airport mainly sees flights within Spain, Europe and Türkiye, as shown by the departure screen that afternoon.

Getting airside wasn't too problematic or stressful, once I was airside, I sat down to charge up my phone for a bit and check out what aircraft would be coming to do this flight from Bilbao to Gatwick, Bilbao Airport looked quite a narrow space, with this elevated area for general public congregation and the Gates all located a mezzanine below with some of the B-Gates appearing to have passport control kiosks for the non-Schengen flights like the UK, Türkiye or Ireland. 

Plane spotting was just about manageable with the slanted and tinted glass panels given I couldn't go right up to the glass to photo through them, I noticed a few movements from Iberia Express, Vueling and Air Europa operating afternoon domestic flights back to major Spanish cities in the South.

My flight arrived and we were called to the Gate for boarding, it was going to be a full flight going back to London Gatwick, I had received some emails from Vueling offering to give me incentives to take earlier or later flights on the days leading up to this flight. I wasn't able to accept these conditions due to scheduling commitments, so I opted to check in online very early as a higher sequence number is likely to secure you a place on the flight if they start bumping people off the flight!

Airbus A320neo EC-NCU would be my operating my first flight with Vueling, this aircraft was delivered to the airline brand new from Airbus on May 17th 2019, making it just shy of 5 years old at the time of flying it.

Boarding the Vueling Airbus A320neo I was greeted with a familiar sight, the "Ironing board" slimline seats that are also used on a selected number of British Airways Airbus A320neo/A321neo as well as on Iberia A320 family aircraft. The only major difference is the yellow Vueling branded seat covers. I selected Seat 22A for a window seat and it offered some nice wing views from the rear as well as plenty of space to enjoy the inflight scenery as I wasn't paying excessive amounts for a more forward seat!

These seats are very basic. No headrests, no recline, a small coat hook and comedically small tray table (not as bad as Spirit Airlines though). At least Vueling (unlike BA & Iberia) provide inflight magazines alongside both an inflight menu and safety card.

We pushed back a few minutes behind our scheduled departure and made the short taxi across Bilbao Airport for Runway 12, we then darted down the runway and lifted off into a beautiful clear sky above Northern Spain, making a few left hand turns to put us on course for the Northbound flight towards the United Kingdom.

Whilst we went in the wrong direction to see Bilbao from above, we did however get some beautiful scenery of the mountains and rural areas around the Urdaibai Biosferaren Erreserba Nature Reserve on take off.

Our route from Bilbao to London Gatwick would take us over the Bay of Biscay in a straight line, before crossing the Brittany region of France passing just West of both Nantes and Rennes before making a slight right turn across the English Channel before starting our approach over the South of England for arrival into London Gatwick.

Vueling, as with Iberia & British Airways offer inflight Wi-Fi with some basic offerings regarding your flight, including the duty free catalogue, inflight magazine, basic flight information. If you wanted to use Social Media or streaming services then it would be €5.99c (£5.09p) for one hour or €7.99c (£6.79p) for the whole flight. I opted not to use these services.

I opted to get a decent bit of dining on this flight after a day of wondering around Bilbao, also just in case I didn't get a chance to get anything at London Gatwick before my coach. I saw something interesting- a vegan burger. I'd never eaten a burger on a plane prior to this and opted to try it out, it was part of a €12 meal deal, so I thought "what the heck, lets give it a go".

My Ice Tea and candy was given to me right away and the burger was duly delivered about 10 minutes later. It didn't look brilliant I must say, but I have flown enough to know that anything hot food which is "buy on board" in a plane is not going to look the part, but as long as it tasted good enough…

But I need to address this bit of negligence… The burger was cooked on the outside, but as I bit into the middle of the burger it was stone cold. Not even slightly undercooked- it was like it had just come from the fridge. Luckily I was testing out a vegan burger as if it had been a meat burger I would have likely contracted food poisoning. I hit the call bell and asked if the burger could be reheated and that it was uncooked in the middle, the flight attendant agreed and took it for a bit more heating. It was returned at a safe to eat temperature and I enjoyed the rest of it. I did find the flavour a bit bland, but that was something I could easily forgive and forget.

Crisis averted, and the luckily for me there was no further issues. Why on earth that thing got served so undercooked is unknown to me and I won't point fingers in anyone's direction, however I do have a suspicion as to what occurred. As I have worked previously in food preparation and kitchen jobs when younger, I know that this is one of the worst things you could do when providing a food service. Food Poisoning and Food Allergies are not a joke.

I went to the toilet before landing, and as the crew had huddled in the front galley, I opted to snap a quick galley shot as it was empty as well as a quick cabin shot from the back of the plane, to give a rough idea how busy the flight was.

We began our decent over the English Channel as the 90 minute flight passed quick quickly. Our arrival would bring us in on a route taking us across the English Shoreline between Brighton and Worthing, we made a left turn just shy of Royal Turnbridge Wells which lined us a straight path into London Gatwick on Runway 26L.

Whilst Bilbao had blessed us with a beautiful evening departure from Spain, our arrival into London Gatwick was the total opposite with thick cloud across the County of Sussex, the saving grace being that it wasn't raining when we landed, just cloudy and muggy.

We taxied around London Gatwick for our stand, which was North side of the main Pier for the South Terminal, as we taxied I noticed a few oddities including a Jet2 Boeing 737 (Jet2 doesn't regularly fly from Gatwick), a BA A321ceo (BA recently moved this sub-fleet from LHR to LGW) as well as the flash looking Boeing 777-200ER G-YMML, the BA plane wears the "Festival of Creativity" livery which its done since 2015.

I was one of the last passengers off the aircraft, it gave me a chance to get some better cabin shots with most the other passengers off the aircraft. After leaving the plane I made my way to the passport control and arrivals, I got through within minutes of leaving the plane, making for another seamless arrival into London Gatwick.

Vueling was a nice airline experience, despite the food faux-par, and I am happy enough to give them another chance to see if I have a better experience in the future… As long as the price is right anyway!

Bonus : Click here display hide

Britanny Ferries (Portsmouth to Bilbao)

So I didn't fly to Bilbao, I sailed on a Ferry which took 30 hours, I thought I'd share a look into my Ferry journey as a comparison to my Vueling flight if you'd like to follow!

I travelled from Portsmouth to Bilbao with French company Brittany Ferries who serve various routes between Britain, Ireland, Spain and France across the Bay of Biscay and English Channel.

The Ferry doing my trip was the Galicia and the journey was going to be a 30-hour treck from 10pm (GMT) on Tuesday April 9th through to 08am (CET) on Thursday April 11th, though we didn't set sail until 00:35am (GMT) on Wednesday April 10th!

I grabbed breakfast the next morning for Є8 which was a Є6.50 Continental breakfast deal (Hot Drink, Juice & Pastry) and an extra Kit Kat for the extra Є1.50, but dinner that evening I enjoyed a deal for Є25 which included a Main + Desert, it was delicious!

It was not a good day travelling across the English Channel and Bay of Biscay, very cold and windy- it didn't stop me going on the main deck a couple of times. Overall it was a nice relaxing crossing, I paid a premium to acquire the cabin for this which turned into a good choice!

Despite the weather, we did get a beautiful sunrise with amazing weather as we arrived into the Port of Bilbao and I was up on the viewing deck during our arrival. I should note that public transport is not easily available from Bilbao's Port, so you should at least get a taxi for around Є20 to the nearest Metro station where you can pick up a ticket for travelling around the city!

I love an open board or disembarkation on a plane, but this was a real treat as a foot passenger on this Brittany Ferry, I got to exit the Ferry as a foot passenger through the Bow of the Ship itself!!!

So then, my question to you- 30 Hours of a Ferry or 90 minutes on a Plane? What do you think is the best way of getting between the South of England and Northern Spain? Please feel free to sound off in the comments of my post!