Last week, without much fanfare, a new airline began shuttling passengers between Barcelona, Spain, and the West Coast of the United States.
It's called Level, a joint British-Spanish venture, and it was encouraged by the success of Norwegian and WOW, which sell no-frills seats across the Atlantic with prices as low as $99 with extreme advance purchase.
It flies between Barcelona and Los Angeles twice a week and from Oakland three times a week. Mid-June, it also starts flying between Spain and Buenos Aires and Punta Cana.
Level uses A330 aircraft, and 293 of its seats fall in the Economy category—just 30 inches of pitch—where meals, checked baggage, and Wi-Fi are charged extra. The airline does have seat-back entertainment screens.
Level has been claiming that it sold some 52,000 tickets on its first day. That seems like an awful lot, but there's no doubt the line has some powerful backers: It's owned by IAG, which also controls Iberia (whose planes are used by Level), British Airways, and Aer Lingus. Based on its early success, Level is considering adding Rome and Paris to its European destinations.
Level is at flylevel.com.
