Vueling expects 2 million connecting passengers this year

Vueling CEO Alex Cruz said during CAPA's 'Airlines in Transition CEO Summit' last week that the Spanish LCC aims to have two million transfer passengers in 2012. Vueling only started to sell connection itineraries via its Barcelona hub in mid-2010. Mr Cruz says Vueling's connection product has proven to be "very successful" and the carrier has been able to reduce minimum connection times at Barcelona El Prat Airport from 90min to 55min. Vueling now serves almost 80 destinations from Barcelona making it, according to Mr Cruz, a "quasi hub" although technically the carrier is still a point-to-point LCC. Vueling transported over 12 million passengers in 2011 and expects to end 2012 with about 16 million passengers.