Vueling Airlines reliability

I have flown Vueling twice as follows:
First time December 2015 Florence to Orly;
2nd time December 2016 Rome to Orly;
Nothing abnormal happened during my short flights.

My personal opinion regarding CDG is I don't mind flying INTO it but I hate flying OUT of it. Of course lately with all the canceled flights Air France isn't looking any better than anyone else. Also easyJet has a Pisa to Orly flight that might work for you.

We used Vueling to go from Barcelona to Vienna. I expected a "cheap" airline because they were the low cost carrier. We were greeted politely at the counter and given clear instructions. The plane interior was clean, flight attendents were more than polite. We got beverages and I believe a snack and not nickeled and dimed. Plane left on time. I was impressed. I also like Orly better than CDG

Folks that post airline reviews have had a problem. How often do you see reviews that say what a wonderful time was had on such and such airline? Air travel generally sucks and every airline has it’s issues from time to time. But the majority of flights happen and happen close to on time. We flew Easy Jet last summer after reading some terrible reviews and how arcane and difficult their carry on policies were. It was fine. In fact, better than fine. So take your flight and avoid CDG.

We flew Vueling from BCN to Palermo in October and it was fine. Everything is organized and our flight was on time. I would encourage you to upgrade to their version of first class because the coach class is amazingly short on leg space. As in, anyone over 5’4” is going to have their knees jammed into the seat in front of them. The first class was equivalent of the regular coach on most American carriers.

Florence FLR is one of Vueling focus cities and the carrier with most flights out of FLR.
It is true that there are more than occasional cancellations of Vueling flights in and out of Florence.
Vueling is not to blame, the problem is Florence Airport.
Florence has a very short 5500ft runway (RWY 5-23) with a tall mountain close to the northern end. As a result all flights must use the runway in one direction, land from the south-west and take off to the south west. When there are strong tail winds, Airlines must cancel their flights because the runway is too short to land or take off safely.
Vueling is affected by this problem more because they use the larger Airbus 319 aircraft, which require a longer take off (or landing) run compared to the smaller regional jet aircrafts (mainly Embraer 190, Bombardier CS100, Airbus 318) used by the other airlines operating out of FLR.
AirFrance is less affected by this problem, because in Florence they operate their flights on Airbus 318, a shorter version of the A320 family that is certified to land on very short runways, like FLR and also London City (LCY).
The problem of flight cancellations out of Florence is not as acute in summer when winds in Florence are generally non existent (the Florentines wish they had some breeze in summer) and when they happen they are for short period summers storms. So if you fly in August, I think you are reasonably safe that Vueling won’t cancel flights in spite of the larger aircrafts.
I hope one day, after the NIMBYs finally die, they will stop fighting the construction of the new longer runway (which is ready to start but currently stuck in court because of the damn NIMBYs)

The first class was equivalent of the regular coach on most American carriers.

No not quite; that depends on the person or maybe they don't use the same aircraft type on every route; at 6 feet 180 lbs I do not recall an experience of feeling squeezed in on a Vueling flight that was under 2 hours

We flew Vueling from Barcelona to Palermo in March this year. We purchased tickets that included checking a bag, so we did. No problems, flight was fine. I will also say that unlike some other airlines, Vueling consistently notified us of any flight time changes (which were minor). Also, we liked the fact that seat assignments and boarding passes were provided upon reservation.

Thanks for all the input - and Roberto - now I am nervous about short runways - should we consider flying out of Milan or Pisa instead?

Don’t worry marketing. I’ve flown into and out of FLR so many times I can’t even count, and I’m still alive. Besides if weather conditions are bad, they won’t fly in unsafe conditions. But the thrilling part is not the take off, generally uneventful, it is the landing with steep descent followed by the slamming on the brakes. But look, so far, in the last 30+ years since they reopened it to commercial flights, only one plane didn’t stop on time on landing and ended up on the freeway, so the safety record is not bad.

To be exact, the one airplane quoted by Roberto that did not manage to stop within the Florence runway was landing from the wrong direction, that is from the the mountain side of the runway - this being officially allowed for training reasons only, sometimes (very rarely) done to save time on approach and only under optimal weather conditions. As the ILS approach radar is only on the freeway side, there are scarce incentives for commercial flights to request a visual landing from the wrong side.

Long time users of this forum will remember I have past issues with Vueling reliability. The main issue is not they performance - if due to bad weather nobody can fly safely out of Florence, amen, you can't fly - the main issue is that in case of trouble their customer assistance is less then stellar. If everything goes well they are a fine airline, if there are problems you will likely be on your own.

I've used them a lot and they are fine. But you do need to be sure what you are buying, including the luggage rules.

For example with the previous comment "the first class was equivalent of the regular coach on most American carriers". I am not sure Vueling has first class. They offer "premium" seats for a bit more money such as on an emergency exit row with a little more leg-room or seats having the middle seat unoccupied. But the seats themselves are, I think, just the same. So take care in understanding what you are buying and make your expectations accordingly.

Thanks everyone - I will go ahead and book the Vueling flight out of Florence. Hoping for good weather at 6:30 am!