Vueling Aviation Airlines Apply Crypto Payment, Asik Nih!

Vueling accepts crypto as a means of payment for his services. (Photo; Doc. Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - One of Spain's low-cost airlines, Vueling decided to accept crypto as payment for its services. The company announced on January 14 that it is examining the use of blockchain and NFT technology to allow customers to earn plane tickets with crypto.

For this task, Vueling has partnered with Cryptan, a national exchange that has been listed on the Bank of Spain, to function as a payment company, process and complete customer orders using crypto.

Vueling said this move would turn it into the first low-cost airline to accept crypto as a means of payment in Europe. In this regard, Jesus Monzo, Vueling's alliance and distribution manager, stated:

"This agreement puts us at the forefront of technology and new innovations, further strengthening our commitment to our customers and offering the best and most advanced tools and solutions on our websites."

Jorge Soriano, CEO of Cryptan, stated that the company believes that the introduction of crypto payments can improve the user experience by showing potential customers behind the implementation of the solution.

This functionality is expected to be available on airline websites in Q3 2023, and will use UATP technology, a global payment network for airlines, although the company has yet to show which cryptocurrency will be received.

Other airlines have introduced crypto and even NFT as part of their retail operations. One of them is Flybondi, an Argentine airline, which announced it will issue flight tickets as NFT in September 2022, allowing users to sell them in the secondary market.

As part of the alliance, the company will also accept payments in stablecoins such as USDC, using Binance Pay as its payment processing partner. But even before that, the Venezuelan government reported it would accept multiple cryptocurrencies as payments for aircraft tickets in October 2021, including national tokens, petro.