Laurence Dollimore
SPANISH airline Vueling has been ranked the third worst airline in the world by air-travellers.
A TripAdvisor poll ranked hundreds of carriers from around the globe and listed all those that received more than 400 reviews.
The top group all had an average rating of 4.5 and were ordered by which had the most five-star reviews.
First, second and third went to Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand respectively.
The bottom airlines all received an average of 3 out of 5, and so were placed in order of which had the most 1-star reviews.
First of the bottom list was Spirit, followed by Frontier and then Vueling.
See the full list below:
Top 16
- Emirates – 67.5% five-star reviews
- Singapore Airlines – 64.2%
- Air New Zealand – 60.6%
- Southwest – 60%
- Qatar Airways – 59.7%
- JetBlue – 59.4%
- Aeroflot – 58.9%
- JAL – 58.6%
- Azul – 58.6%
- Jet2.com – 56.4%
- ANA – 55.8%
- Garuda – 53.5%
- Aegean – 53.5%
- THAI Smile – 51%
- Avianca – 49.9%
- TAM – 45.5%
Bottom 16
- Spirit – 42.8% one-star reviews
- Frontier – 40.3%
- Vueling – 34.8%
- Allegiant – 30.7%
- Wow – 32.6%
- Sunwing – 25.4%
- American Airlines – 21.5%
- Air Europa – 19.7%
- airberlin – 17.7%
- Thomas Cook Airlines – 17.6%
- United – 17.3%
- Air Transat – 15.5%
- Jetstar – 15.1%
- Iberia – 12.8%
I must admit to being a little surprised by this news – if indeed it is news. My experience with Vueling has been pretty damned good for an (almost) budget airline, and certainly better than the Ryanair/Easyjet level of service.
Am I the only one?
I must agree with the gentleman above I have used them quite often and they have always given a excellent service.
I’ve used them a few times and been well impressed by the service and the air planes. Unless they have gone downhill in the last couple of years.
Where does Ryanair, Easy Jet, Monarch et al come in all this?
What about BA-IB One World? Yesterday. Sunday Oct 16, I flew from Madrid to Chicago on the 11:50 AM flight. Seventy-five minutes out we noticed we were flying rough and so low we could still see land details. Twenty minutes later the cockpit spoke.
The captain’s message:
“We are experiencing some mechanical difficulties and will return to Barajas Airport, Madrid. One set of wing flaps are malfunctioning and we cannot gain needed altitude. You will notice on the way back that we will be jettisoning fuel, but this is not a serious situation. As I have more information, I will relay it to you.” All cabin crew hurried to the cockpit for a captain’s meeting.
Some minutes later another message in the forced cool tone of the pilot: “Another plane will be waiting for you at the gate next to where you disembarked, Gate U72. There is no cause for alarm.” Maybe not…
.
We went back to Barajas, were herded into the secure flight area of USA destinations.We sat, and sat, and sat for more than an hour as the Iberia flight info board moved the new take off time later and later. Security prevented any movement out of the area. And, Iberia One World had already disabled on-line comments and reviews of service.
About 4:20 PM we took off. A faulty door catch on a vertical storage closet used by the flight crew flapped noisily, blocking the aisle to the emergency exit door. Flight crew were mainly indifferent, accepting such annoyance as if a fly. Two of us continued to close and latch it about every 20 minutes throughout the 9.5 hour flight. A piece of tape would have been a temporary fix.
We arrived at O’HAre at 6:30 PM, but sat on the plane for 40 minutes because no exit ramp was available.
My wife was waiting for me at O’Hare, and I do mean waiting, from 2 till 7:30 pm when I at last exited with checked bag.
IB-BA-One World had not released any on-line or telephone flight details to any One World partners or independent flight reporting services save one flight tracker, and they had sparse and late information that the flight was “delayed”. But no expected arrival time or other information. No email, no phone call even though they had ’emergency contact information. I got a new departure gate update after we had already left. as if, in true formal legalistic fashion, someone could say ‘we sent out the information’, but not mentioning several hours after the fact. Thst is, risk management felt they has sufficiently covered their back sides.
Problems are at least three:
1. How is it possible for a plane with non-functioning wing flaps allowed to take off on an international flight? We were fortunate not yet to be over the ocean, that a ‘rough’ landing could have been possible at a regional airport or highway.
2. Who ordered the blackout on flight information and arrival updates? That’s a cover-up for, I suppose, both marketing and insurance purposes.
3. Where was the de-planing ramp in Chicago? One-World IB-BA had ten hours to arrange for one.
All this is managerial incompetence due to poor training, and customer indifference based on the One World monopoly of flights.
Because of the terrible web site maintained by Iberia, we always book through BA as their web site actually works: IB crashes, omits steps, dumps info already entered. etc.
Despite internet improvements via BA, hidden problems start as soon as you are now in the hands of Iberia’s management, technicians and attorneys. Of course the cabin crew are polite and efficient: they just take orders and do their work with the require smiles, though some initiative could have fixed the aisle-blocking door. But people got their drinks on time!
We question whether the indifference, incompetence, corruption, lack of attention to detail and arrogance that permeate banking, real estate, the judiciary, planning and construction, public education and hospital management are also endangering lives within the aviation sector as well.
Or is the problem just the all too common lack of focus – the myth that one can ‘multi-task’, which means no one served gets proper attention. We have all experienced scatter-brained service when in a bank, telephone office or retail shop as the clerk or functionary attends to every interruption from telephone calls, aggressive line-jumping clients or side conversation.
When it comes to aviation safety, this is serious stuff; it makes little difference whether problems are generated by managerial incompetence, marketing fraud, attention deficit disordered personnel, or the ubiquitous ‘that’s good enough.’
Lack of services in air transport are not just inconveniences: they are expensive and even life threatening. From where is vigilance going to come? More EU Directives?
Info blackout on in-flight serious mechanical failure of Iberia flight 6275 on October 16 bears investigation.
A 737 pilot friend said the flap problem should have appeared in the avherald.com as an incident. Apparently, Iberia made a top level decision to ‘protect’ its image with the blackout.
The pilot also said that it is not rare for flaps to malfunction, but this problem is normally detected during required pre-flight inspection, though these are sometimes not vigorous.
The only positive part of the pilot’s response to me was that unless something else went wrong, stuck flaps mainly effects fuel consumption and speed, not life and death safety issues.
my personal experience is that spanish airlines Vueling / Iberia are the worst.
That also changed my plan to settle in Spain bcs I wont fly them anymore. Last 5 flights 3 times baggage delayed for 5 days. one time overbooked one time too late. gave it too lawyer they had to pay compensation. but still the struggle isn’t worth it anymore