Vueling Adds 260 thousand Seats on Barcelona-Madrid as Rail Riders Leave
Vueling will run up to five daily Barcelona-Madrid flights as high-speed rail loses passengers. What changes for travelers and why trains are slower.
Vueling is adding 260 thousand seats on its Barcelona-Madrid route and will fly up to five times a day between El Prat and Madrid’s Barajas airport at busy times, the airline said Thursday. The move targets travelers who are giving up on the high-speed train between the two cities, which has lost between 13% and 17% of its passengers compared with last year, according to El País.
From this week the airline offers up to three daily connections. With the extra capacity, Vueling says it will have close to 350 thousand seats on the route, and it now plans to keep the expanded schedule into the summer.
What it means for people traveling between Barcelona and Madrid
For residents who split time between the two cities, or who travel to Madrid for work, the change means more flight times to choose from. Vueling, the low-cost airline of the IAG group, said the five daily flights will run on the days and seasons that need the most connectivity between Barcelona and Madrid. It did not publish a full timetable.
The route already has strong competition. Iberia, Air Europa and Vueling are the main carriers, and since last week Singapore Airlines also sells seats between the two cities as the last leg of its long-haul Singapore-Barcelona service, El País reported.
Vueling has a strong hand at El Prat, where it controls 40% of traffic. In early October it said it was bringing back Barcelona-Madrid flights after a pause, saying it had seen demand rise, especially among people traveling for work. That plan was originally meant to run from October until March 29, 2027. Thursday’s announcement extends it.
Why trains on the line are losing riders
The high-speed line has been hit by a run of breakdowns and delays that has pushed passengers away. El País also noted that the full-year figures could get worse after the recent rail accident at Urda, in the province of Toledo.
Thursday brought another example. Trains on the Madrid-Barcelona line ran about 20 minutes late on average after a small dip was found in the track between Medinaceli (Soria) and Ariza (Zaragoza), forcing trains to slow down, according to 20minutos. Adif, the state company that manages Spain’s rail infrastructure, was alerted early Thursday morning, sources at the company told the EFE news agency. Adif said it was working to fix the problem as fast as possible but gave no estimate for when normal service would resume.
A wider shift from rail to air in Spain
The Barcelona-Madrid route is one of several where airlines are adding capacity as rail service struggles. The most visible case is the line between Madrid and Andalusia, where high-speed service was interrupted after the Urda accident. Wizz Air has announced new Madrid-Málaga and Madrid-Sevilla routes, joining Iberia, Air Europa, Volotea and Ryanair, which had already announced extra flights, El País reported.
For Barcelona-based travelers, the result is more seats in the air between Barcelona and Madrid while the high-speed train keeps running with delays. Vueling has said the higher frequencies will continue into summer, and the current winter plan runs to March 29, 2027.
