D-AECF made a somewhat rough landing in Florence’s single runway in a cloudy Sunday evening in September 2020; the Embraer 190 operated by Lufthansa Cityline completed yet another flight to the capital of Tuscany.

Personally it was a very important flight as it was the flight that took me to a new life in Italy, where I still study today. But the mere existence of this flight – and the fact I took it – might as well be explained by the unique circumstances that surround Florence Airport.

Enter Vueling. The Spanish low-cost owned by IAG, the group that owns Aer Lingus, British Airways and Iberia has, by a large margin, the largest operation in town. In fact, besides major capital airports, this is Vueling’s largest base outside of Spain.

Not only that, but airlines managed by the big three legacy groups of Europe – Air France/KLM, Lufthansa Group and IAG – hold 87.48% of the ASKs loaded for the airport in June, according to Cirium’s Diio Mi application. That’s a big feat as Vueling reigns as the only low cost operating in the city.

Enter, now, another factor: Florence’s extreme operations. The airport, whose only runway was built between the city and a mount, has a very short runway, and this means that, apart from small aircraft, both take-off and landing must happen in opposite directions.

Not only that, but the runway itself is short, with 1,455 meters available in the usual direction of landings. That impedes larger aircraft, like Ryanair’s 737-800s, of operating with a full payload, although shorter versions of narrowbodies, such as the Boeing 737-700 and the Airbus A319, can operate there with high payloads.

With that, Ryanair’s single base in Tuscany is in Pisa, that is around 70 kilometers away from Florence; all other low costs with the exception of Vueling do the same – Volotea even sells Pisa in its website as «Pisa/Florence».

Much conveniently, Vueling operates a fleet of six Airbus A319 – five of which are active, according to Planespotters.net. Not as a coincidence, all of the five have passed by Florence in the last seven days, as per FlightRadar24 data.

In effect, with its Vueling proxy, IAG can pretty much manage its margins in the city, without being guided by the low-fare competitors like easyJet, Ryanair or Volotea. Together with British Airways and Iberia, the group holds 42.5% of June’s ASKs in the airport.

Let’s take a deeper look into the June schedule, with the help of Cirium, to see the role of Vueling in this market. Below is IAG’s route map from Florence in June.

The routes in red are operated by British Airways (rather its E190 subsidiary, BA Cityflyer) and Iberia, while routes in blue are operated by Vueling. Clearly BA is trying to snatch premium-paying passengers eager to visit Florence with its point-to-point flying, as its Heathrow operation is concentrated in Pisa Airport, with the larger A320s.

That’s a robust network that, with in some days up to three based aircraft – last year only one overnighted in Florence – combines the best of all worlds with the assets Vueling has.

In comparison to June 2019’s schedule, four routes have been dropped, connecting Florence to London/Luton (Vueling has dropped all operations there), Madrid (Iberia still connects these cities, albeit in a smaller scale than in 2019), Palma de Mallorca and Tel Aviv – these last two must have performed bad.

But the new routes are revealing of where IAG is trying to head with Vueling in Italy.

We must not ignore that IAG has no airline in Italy; without Vueling, their presence in this market would be basically Aer Lingus, British Airways and Iberia trying to feed their hubs – as is the case with Air France-KLM.

With Vueling’s lower costs per seat, they can go beyond that and – as they are trying to do with their new Orly slots – actually set foot in this market that, as other low-costs have proved, is so valuable when explored right.

In this respect, the five new routes show a lot of this approach; Vueling will connect Florence to Bilbao, Munich, Olbia, Prague and Vienna.

While the Bilbao route is one that originates in the Spanish base, the other ones show this aggressive behaviour of Vueling. The one to Olbia, catering to the VFR traffic that needs to get from the mainland to Sardinia especially during Summer.

The other routes, to Munich, Prague and Vienna, likely cater to the leisure traffic in both ways. While these might look like «obvious» routes, the ones to Munich and Vienna are not, as they will face intense competition from Air Dolomiti (Lufthansa Group’s Italian venture), which operates around 29 flights per week in the segments and Austrian Airlines, which also belongs to the Lufthansa Group, with two flights a day.

And how IAG plans facing this competition? Having a lower unit cost – and, again, the restrictions in Florence play in their favour. Both Air Dolomiti and Austrian plan to use the Embraer 195 in these routes, a jet with a higher cost per seat than the A319.

With that, fares with Vueling to Vienna start at a fraction of what Austrian charges, for instance. And by the way, there’s even friendly fire within Lufthansa Group as going via Zurich with Swiss, and that’s inside Austrian’s booking system, is actually cheaper than going nonstop with Austrian.

That’s not to say that it is all very easy for Vueling. Keep in mind that about 70 kilometres away lie easyJet’s and Ryanair’s unbeatable prices. And from the 14 routes the Spanish low-cost plans operating from Florence in June, there will be Ultra Low-Cost competition from Pisa in eight.

But with three Airbus A319 doing their night services in Florence, Vueling is going all-in in this market and. As long as the second runway that’s being promised for decades does not actually happen, IAG has finally set foot in Italy.

And if it depends on Vueling, with the right set of circumstances, the further Lufthansa will go in Florence will be that Embraer 190 run from Frankfurt, like the one I took back in 2020.