Iberia (IB, Madrid Barajas) has announced that it will cut up to 15% of its capacity by the end of 2013 including 20 A320 family short-haul aircraft and five A340s used on long-haul routes. Given Iberia starts taking delivery of eight A330-300s as of next year, this likely means that up to 13 A340s will be retired. Iberia currently operates 17 A340-600s, 16 A340-300s, 19 A321-200s, 24 A320-200s and 20 A319-100s. As part of the plan, International Airlines Group will cut 4,500 of approximately 20,000 jobs at Iberia. The Spanish national carrier has been heavily hit by the recession in Spain and has produced heavy losses recently. IAG has at the same time announced that it has made an offer for the 54% of shares in low-cost carrier Vueling Airlines (VY, Barcelona El Prat) it does not yet own for 113 million EUR. Its own low-cost carrier Iberia Express (I2, Madrid Barajas) currently operates 15 A320-200s on feeder services from Madrid Barajas and could possibly be merged with Vueling at a later stage. Other than to its main base in Barcelona, Vueling only operates a daily service from Madrid to Paris CDG right now with seasonal services around holidays and during the summer operating from there to Ibiza, Menorca Mahón and Rome Fiumicino. Vueling operates two A319-100s and 53 A320-200s from bases at Barcelona, Bilbao, Málaga, Paris Orly and Sevilla.