Vueling to launch 28 new routes from Paris Orly in November after Air France slot reallocation
Having recently secured 18 daily slots at Paris ORY that were handed over by Air France in return for European Commission approval of French government financial support for the flag-carrier, Vueling has revealed the 28 new routes it will be launching from early November. As a result, it will be offering service to 48 destinations this winter. The 28 new routes for this winter, which include six that were previously served, are:
- Agadir: 2-weekly from 3 November
- Asturias: 2-weekly from 3 November (previously served)
- Bari: 2-weekly from 2 November (previously served)
- Belfast International: 2-weekly from 2 November
- Bergen: 2-weekly from 4 November
- Billund: 2-weekly from 4 November
- Birmingham: 3-weekly from 3 November (previously served)
- Bologna: 3-weekly from 3 November (previously served)
- Cardiff: 2-weekly from 2 November
- Cork: 2-weekly from 5 November
- Dublin: 7-weekly from 2 November
- Edinburgh: 3-weekly from 2 November (previously served)
- Genoa: 2-weekly from 5 November
- Glasgow: 2-weekly from 4 November
- Gothenburg: 2-weekly from 5 November
- Granada: 2-weekly from 3 November
- Hamburg: 4-weekly from 3 November
- Jerez de la Frontera: 2-weekly from 5 November
- Leipzig: 2-weekly from 2 November
- Malta: 2-weekly from 5 November
- Milan Bergamo: 3-weekly from 2 November
- Newcastle: 2-weekly from 4 November
- Nuremberg: 3-weekly from 2 November
- Santander: 2-weekly from 5 November
- Stockholm Arlanda: 2-weekly from 6 November
- Tangier: 2-weekly from 3 November (previously served)
- Turin: 2-weekly from 2 November
- Zaragoza: 2-weekly from 4 November
In total these routes will generate 68 weekly departures from Orly, split fairly evenly across the week. Monday will see 11 departures, Tuesday nine, Wednesday eight, Thursday nine, Friday 10, Saturday 11 and Sunday 10. Based on analysis of Cirium Data and Analytics schedule information for November 2021, Vueling will face direct competition from Orly on just five of the 28 routes. Agadir and Tangier are both already served by Royal Air Maroc and Transavia France, while Air France’s LCC also already serves Dublin and Stockholm. Finally, Air Malta will now no longer be the only carrier connecting Malta with Orly.
20 routes were previously already scheduled for this winter
Prior to the slot handover, Vueling was already planning to serve 20 destinations from Orly this winter. Of these 12 were in Spain; Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Santiago de Compostela, Tenerife TFS and Valencia. The other eight are Copenhagen, Florence, Lisbon, London LGW, Milan MXP, Porto, Prague and Rome FCO. The Prague service started on 1 July this year.
Air France and subsidiaries account for half of all flights at Orly
Looking at schedule data for September 2021 reveals that Air France and its low-cost subsidiary Transavia are, not surprisingly, the two busiest carriers at the airport and account for almost half of all departures. What may come as a surprise is that Transavia is now busier than Air France at Orly. Pre-pandemic this was not the case. Exactly how this has come to pass is worthy of a separate piece of analysis. Vueling ranks third with 13% of flights while easyJet is not far behind with 11%. With these new routes Vueling will move into a clear third place.
