How Vueling Drove Digital, Cultural, and Cost Transformation Success with Shibumi

Optimization with Shibumi has created tens of millions of euros in cost savings

Company Name:
Vueling Airlines
Industry:
Transportation
Location:
Barcelona, Spain
Company Size:
€1,016 million annual revenue
Use Cases:
  • Digital Transformation
  • Process Optimization
  • Team Alignment
  • Enterprise-wide visibility
Business Impact:
  • Tens of million of euros in cost savings
  • 2x increase in ancillary revenue
  • Awarded the title of Best Digital Transformation Initiative

Customer Overview

Vueling is the leading low-cost airline in Spain, employing thousands and ferrying more than 38 million passengers to their destinations every year.

Goal

Accelerate Digital, Cultural, and Cost Transformations Across 20+ Initiatives

Vueling Airlines is the leading low-cost airline in Spain, serving more than 38 million passengers each year. The company boasts nearly 5,000 employees and has one of the largest fleets in the country. Vueling celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024 but remained poised for further growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the travel industry, and leaders at Vueling knew they needed to transform operations or risk falling behind. As a low-cost carrier, Vueling wanted to continue prioritizing efficiency and cost, while delivering a positive travel experience to customers. To optimize operations while creating opportunities for innovation, Vueling needed to tap into its employees’ ideas, expertise, and creativity to improve efficiency and empower better decision making at every level.

Solution

Partner with Shibumi to Launch and Scale Enterprise-Wide Transformation Program

Vueling aimed not just to create efficiency, but to foster a culture of innovation. To do so, leaders knew they needed a platform to align teams, track transformations, and gauge success. This led to the creation of Vueling Transform in 2020, and later the Make It Better initiative, which challenged employees to contribute to problem solving around company issues. Both of these initiatives are underpinned by Shibumi’s architecture, which Vueling leverages to comprehensively track, manage, and create reports for the more than 20 large-scale initiatives currently under the Vueling Transform and Make It Better umbrellas. These initiatives and their corresponding data span every branch of the company. Shibumi has been instrumental in creating visibility and a high degree of employee engagement and accountability across disparate teams and longterm transformations. The 360-degree view provided by Shibumi offers Vueling’s teams granular insights into progress, which has accelerated progress.

“The platform’s dynamic integration of strategy and execution sparked a culture of accountability and collaboration, turbocharging Vueling’s journey toward a smarter, leaner, and more agile future.”

VUELING HEAD OF TRANSPORTATION

Results

Team Alignment and Process Optimization Created Tens of Millions in Cost Savings

Since launching its transformation program with Shibumi, Vueling has realized tens of millions in cost savings and has doubled ancillary revenue. With the ability to get real-time access to the most granular data, teams have identified risks, developed creative solutions, and course-corrected as necessary. This visibility has allowed Make It Better to surpass its initial goals for development and participation. To date, the company has put more than 30 employee-developed solutions in place, with an estimated value of €4.1 million.

“With Shibumi, we gained unprecedented, real-time insights across all initiatives, empowering leaders to swiftly act on risks and opportunities. The platform’s dynamic integration of strategy and execution sparked a culture of accountability and collaboration, turbocharging Vueling’s journey toward a smarter, leaner, and more agile future,” said Vueling’s Head of Transformation.

Since partnering with Shibumi, Vueling has successfully been able to capture ideas, plan future scenarios, and execute on big ideas—measuring their success at every step. As a result, Vueling and Shibumi won a joint award at Operational Excellence Week: Business Transformation Summit in January of 2025, earning the title of Best Digital Transformation Initiative, an international marker of innovation and business excellence. The efficiencies Vueling has realized with the help of Shibumi are also evidenced in their recent ranking by Cirium On-Time Performance Review as the #4 most on-time airline in the entirety of Europe.

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