Leonardo Said, "Look Skyward" -- But Not on Vueling

Leonardo Said, "Look Skyward" -- But Not on Vueling
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"Once you have tasted flight," the Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci proclaimed, "you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward." Among the most illustrious and graceful flying experiences were TWA's famous Flight One that linked New York to LA, and eventually inspired Eero Saarinen's majestic terminal at JFK. After which came Pan Am's luxurious trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific routes--with real pillows, nearly fresh dinners and a wide array of free newspapers and magazines even for tourist class passengers. For those few years in modern airline history, flying carried all the magic that Leonardo promised.

Then came the low-costs, most notoriously at first the Irish upstart, Ryanair, whose ticket prices were as tiny as their seat backs. A chiropractor's dream ship. By and by, Ryan caught up, bought bigger planes, and of late has hired real seat designers to create it's new strange but much more comfortable stacked sandwich configuration. They could have crossed the border into North Ireland to see what the world-recognized Thompson seat company is doing for genuine comfort aloft, but at least they and some other Low-Costs have begun to address the torture buckets that allow them to stuff dozens more souls into their zooming steel cigars.

Then came the Spanish competition, whose name, Vueling, suggestively recalls Leonardo promise that once aloft your eyes will always cast themselves skyward. For a few of Vueling's unhappy passengers plugged against the aging scratched windows, it is surely true. For the contorted rest, well, best to look up their on-line remarks about Europe's newest low-cost competitor.

From Marcus, of Ft. Lauderdale: "If you have the overwhelming longing to experience life as a sardine then Vueling Airlines is for you! which I only took to be rather clever and witty. Big mistake. Silly me, because when I took flight on Vueling I quickly discovered his statement to in fact be a dire warning. Best I can say my flight experience is, being relatively small person, 5'10" and 168lbs, I was luckier than most. The plane was an Airbus 319-100, a plane which I have been on before, but found this one much different. It had far more seats than the others and the seats had a pitch forward angel to them which I think might have been a design intended to contort you in such a manner as to allow an inch or two of additional leg room."

From Robbie, in London: "Don't do it! Really bad. Budget service so you get what you pay for plus the added benefit of long queues, delays and no space. Really not worth paying less as you'll probably end up paying more. Customer service is terrible, in the case of my cancelled flight, who knows how long that will take to claim."

From Kathleen of Vancouver, Canada: "I've never really been one to enjoy going commando, but thanks to Vueling, that's recently changed. That's because they lost my luggage -- with all my underwear -- on a direct flight from Rome to Prague. . . what is really special about Vueling, and what has made the experience a complete treat -- other than the chafing, down there -- is how little Vueling seems to care about getting my bag back. I of course can't confirm they don't give a hoot, I can just say that's sure what it seems like from my perspective, day 3 of being underwear-less in Prague, getting nothing but scripted responses from everyone I talk to.

If you choose to fly Vueling, I heartily recommend you go with hand luggage only and at the very least, pack and extra pair of panties."

From Ali C in San Francisco: "Final update - after our second visit to the airport, Vueling staff told us our luggage would be on a later flight that same day. So we left and came back six hours later. The flight arrived and luckily had our bags too! Phew! I would never fly again with Vueling (and Iberia the parent company). Our return flight is in a few days which I will be canceling and booking a flight with another airline. If you in the same situation I suggest you go to the airport directly and push the staff to confirm a flight to deliver your bags. Good luck!

From Madam M in London: "What a terrible airline! I took the flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona yesterday. Upon arriving in Barcelona Vueling informed us that they did not load any of the checked luggage on to the plane! There was no straight explanation from any of Vueling staff. Neither of them had any clue. Based on their responses it seemed like they did not care at all. They would not confirm if the airline would cover for incidentals or not. We did not hear a single apology. We had to line up for over 2 hours to give them our information so they would reach out to us once the luggages are found. It has been 24 hours and no response from the company."

From Bay W in Brooklyn: "One of the worst airlines! To start, bag check lady completely rude to me when informing me that my flight had been delayed, and was annoyed that I of course had questions. She, along with other staff had no answers and seemed clueless and frustrated about what was going on. My flight was inevitably delayed, causing me to miss my connecting flight and took a whole day away from my trip in which I traveled 14 hours plus to get to. Thanks for really trying your best Vueling. Won't be spending my money nor flying with you again!"

From MD in Maryland: The lack of good customer service on Vueling's part should be enough to drive anyone away. All I am saying is to plan your itinerary so that intercity air travel is not necessary. I won't make that mistake a second time and I certainly will not use Vueling again.

All this of course assumes you have been able to board one of their contraptions. But that is far from easy, as another British passenger noted a few months ago: "Vueling must be one of the only airlines left that does not enable you to check in online if you are a non-EU passport holder. I understand documents need to be checked, but on more than one occasion since I could not check in ahead of time I was nearly bumped (LGW to BCN), and once I actually was bumped (BCN to MUC) because the flight was oversold. If you're flying full flights at a peak time like MWC or Oktoberfest, get to the airport early."

Of course anyone passing through the San Quentin-like security of today's airports should never arrive less than two hours before departure. All of those things I'd born in mind, having also read many online advisories about the Vueling experience. Unlike the British lady, I did after an hour manipulating Vueling's website manage to print out a boarding pass the day before. Given what I'd read I didn't dare check anything in the hold. But what I didn't know was that at the final gate check-in Vueling requires any non-European citizen, including those with long-term residency papers, to present a passport. After nearly two decades traveling on trains and airlines all over the European Union, where people with residency cards move about as easily as the locals, it never occurred to me to bring a passport to the Paris airport.

Wrong. Very wrong. The surly check-in boss at the gate, a gate to a bus to the plane far far away, stated plainly, in a sort of French, No passport, you don't get on this plane. A galloping run to the ticket office confirmed that Vueling has its own peculiar document procedures. No passport, no ride. No matter that neither its website nor the boarding pass require anything but "personal identity papers."

Ticket dead. Go home. Get the passport. Come back another day.

Message: Fly Lowcost--You Get What You Pay For. (But you may only look skyward instead of flying through the sky.)

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