Travel to Florence on Vueling Airlines

That is different from every trip I have ever booked (dozens), and I'd attempt to change if that is a possibility. Thanks for the warning, and good luck!

American does not deal with seat assignments or questions for the second leg of the trip on Vueling to Florence even though they scheduled it for us.

Your Veuling flight is an AA codeshare, yes? It should have an AA flight number rather than a Veuiling flight number. As an AA codeshare, they should be able to check through your baggage and issue a boarding pass for the second flight. I would go back to AA and politely insist that they confirm these points to you.

Seat assignments are a separate issue - you should try to access your Veuling flight on their website with the second record locator and see if you can select seats there.

Vueling is a low cost Spanish airline owned by IAG (International Airline Group), the British-Spanish multinational parent company also of British Airways, Iberia Airlines, Air Lingus, BMI Airlines, Level Airlines.

Check if they can check your luggage through FLR, however, as you probably know, the Low Cost Airlines have a different business model whereby they don't provide bag transfer from flight to flight, so it's possible that you may not be able to do so.

I do not know about codeshares; I only know that the FLR airport has a very short runway. Air France flies modified A318 and A319 airplanes with increased braking (as far as I know it is only a braking software tweak), Vueling flies the basic model. According to my experience and to my brother's experience (he is a frequent traveler between Paris and Florence) it is easier to get stranded for bad weather in FLR by Vueling that by Air France, as when the weather gets bad the runway is slippery and you need stronger brakes. But - and this is the main point - if bad weather is expected in Florence, Vueling may well leave some baggage down and fly the same with a lighter airplane; this both on incoming flights (you need strong brakes) and in outgoing flights (you need more acceleration); it is up to the captain to decide, according to local conditions. In an extreme case - this happened to my brother - 20 already checked passengers out of 100 were bumped from a departing flight from Florence to keep the airplane ligther. In another extreme case - this happened to me - a flight in Barcelona had a very short turnover time as the previous flight had been delayed, in order to keep time they simply did not load baggage at all in Barcelona. In that case I was in a group of about 80 persons. We waited a long time at the baggage carousel in FLR, in the meantime they loaded the airplane with departing passengers and left. When we understood that no baggage had been unloaded in Florence as no baggage had been loaded in Barcelona, the matter was dealt by the airport personnel as in the meantime all Vueling people had left. It took four days to get all the baggage in Florence. - As Vueling is a low cost airlines it looks to me normal procedure that AA does not transfer baggage in Madrid, but I am not sure I would really want to travel with baggage on Vueling.

thanks Lachera -- we are flying Flr to ORY with significant luggage -- your experience reminds me how important it is to always have a change of clothes and all meds and valuables with me in my carry on.