Iberia

Flew recently once again with Iberia on Prague - Madrid route. I was waiting for one more experience before writing this review to be sure is more objective. I was once again very happy with my flight. Plane new but unfortunately without air show. Generous seat pitch which made up for the European "middle seat empty" configuration. Crew excellent and professional. Not many smiles but every wish attended immediately and without hesitation. Food excellent. Hot lunch served. This time excellent veal burger with foie gras mousse and truffle salad cheeses and cake. Flying Czech Airlines before on this route I know they do serve only very small cold snack on this three hour flight and charge the same. I am so happy that I have switched and will continue to do so if flying to Madrid.

MAD-MIA on a new A330. IB has a very frustrating problem with pre-reserved seats. I like an aisle to the point where I am willing to pay extra for it. However I discovered that simply wasn't possible in this case. I was booked on the AA codeshare flight (IB6123) and was unable to display my reservation on the IB website until the day before departure. 24 hours prior to departure I did online check in when my booking mysteriously appeared. The system printed out a PDF file with no seat allocation and told me to check at the airport so I called IB. They too were unable to display my reservation and told me that as I had gone into online check in they would be unable to change my seat allocation anyway. The fact that I did not have a seat allocation appeared not to matter. I later went back to the website and tried recheck in and this time the system printed out a proper boarding pass and yes an aisle seat. At no point in the process did I get a choice. This is a great shame because I found check in staff gate staff and the flight crew all very professional and friendly. The A330 is an excellent product and the meal and drinks service was perfectly adequate and followed by an afternoon snack box prior to arrival in Miami. The entertainment system is very good with a good selection of movies on demand. I did find that some of the movies offered were not loaded in the system and were therefore unavailable. We left 15 minutes late and arrived on-time so this was a good flight. If IB resolved the seat allocation issue it would be a greatly improved airline.

I wouldn't use Iberia again as their services were poor and the price of the ticket high. 250 euros per person for a trip Athens to Madrid and back and not even a glass of water was offered. I booked my tickets 2 months before the trip and one week later the same tickets cost 190 euro.

19th and 20th of December flew LHR-MAD-SCL. I have never had a problem flying Iberia short-haul. However after reading all the Iberia reviews on this site I was quite petrified (being a nervous flyer) and I was so pleasantly surprised. New interiors with personal IFE (on the MAD-SCL leg) very responsive FAs (made 3-4 rounds of juices and water). Food was decent and 2 proper meals were served with one snack round at 6.5 into the flight. Good leg space - Captain came on the PA atleast twice to inform on flight progress and weather en-route. Given the less than memorable experience coming back from Buenos Aires to LHR on BA I would say that Iberia is upping its game big time and I would fly them long haul again.

JFK-MAD round trip in economy both flights were excellent on their new A330. The seats are decently comfortable have a nice recline and are fine for sleeping and the service was incredible. Friendly from check-in to the gate and onboard. Food was above average not the best but I was definitely satisfied. Entertainment options were okay by halfway through the flight home I had finished all of the movies I wanted to watch. I was sceptical about flying Iberia after reading all of the past reviews but I was overall very impressed with the service and comfort of the flights. I will definitely fly with them again.

I was not expecting much but I have to say that our recent flight from MAD to SCL in a A340-600 was really very comfortable. I believe we had the latest business class seat and the storage space around this is excellent - a lot better than BA business class. Staff were attentive and polite. I declined the late night meal as I wanted to sleep but breakfast was very good. The only downside was in the earlier connecting flight LHR-MAD with the usual business arrangement for European flights i.e. economy seat but 3 seats between 2 people. Flight was ok - the connection was well sign-posted as we had to change terminals but there was an exceedingly long wait on a bus for 25 mins and this limited the time we were able to spend in the lounge.

Just flew Lisbon to Madrid. Very ordinary experience with absolutely no service offered not even a glass of water. I know it was only a 55 minute flight but they could have at least offered that! Seats have plenty of leg room but are rock hard. Not sure we'd cope with them on a longer flight. Would never recommend this airline after this experience.

BCN-LIM-MAD. Have mixed feelings about the "new" Iberia. On the positive side they are generally punctual and if you fly one of them new A330-300 and A340-600 then the experience is satisfactory however flying on one of their old A340 (there are still quite a few in service) is a truly miserable experience as the seats are uncomfortable and cramped and the entertainment system is limited to a few screens for the whole cabin. Food is generally speaking mediocre and the crew service ranges from indifferent to fairly polite. I find their policy of charging for selecting a seat and food on European routes really mean and I really wish they stopped doing that. However compared to the Iberia from 10 years ago I can see that there are signs of improvements and since they often offer good deals on their South American routes I will probably fly them again.

Just flew from Nice to Madrid then onto San Jose Costa Rica on Iberia economy. I am Star Alliance Gold and OneWorld Sapphire and travel a lot both in business and economy. This flight happened to be in economy and I felt like I stepped on a plane from the 90s! There was no personal inflight entertainment! We are in 2014 almost 2015 and on a 10 hour 40 minute flight we had no choice of movies. Absolutely shocking. Captain didn't say a word the whole flight cabin crew were rude and inattentive highlighted by the fact the toilets were covered in toilet paper on the floor and no one cleaned it up and that they took 1.5 hours to clear away trays. Would hate to see Iberia's crews in an emergency situation. Seat was uncomfortable to say the least and for 1200 euros return I want more for my money even in economy. They should be ashamed that they offer such a poor product so far behind all other major airlines. Cabin crew are paid 33% less than they used to be 17 years ago hence the poor attitude. Will not fly them again. All that we needed to see was that they still had a smoking section on the plane would have fitted in perfectly with their "retro" style seating. Honestly absolutely shocking and how they are in business I will never know.

The MAD-JFK segment of our American Airlines itinerary was on Iberia. As mentioned by other reviewers Iberia's seat selection system is a travesty. It's only purpose is to increase revenue pure and simple. At check-in we were assigned seats 42A and 42C at the very rear of the plane. Described by SeatGuru as "bad" these were actually OK since there was room to recline and no lavatory behind us which meant no passengers loitering around waiting to use the head. (Seats 42J & 42L on the opposite side is probably a different story.) The new A330-300 was a pleasure to fly and the flight attendants were friendly and attentive. The usual Spanish aloofness was certainly absent on this flight. Our overall experience was very good but I'd hesitate to book another flight with Iberia unless they dump their seating assignment system.