Air Europa

Flying MAD-JFK and back. First flight not bad taking off near the right time flying with a relative comfort and arriving ok. But the way back - the flight supposed to be taking off at 10pm was delayed and delayed and delayed. After 5 hours waiting for any information it was cancelled. The staff were polite but really ineffective. Instead of taking a passenger list and assign them a hotel it was a "first come first served" without any control. Next morning no Air Europa staff appeared. Finally at 3pm a bus took us to the airport. At the airport Air Europa lanes were empty no staff. After half an hour someone appeared. Fortunately we were at the right place and took an advanced place in the lane. Very fortunately because only 30 passengers were assigned a flight that day at 10pm. No additional information for the rest of passengers just lane shut down and good bye. Finally with an additional delay of two hours we left JFK. As a final screw our luggage was not flying with us so we needed to wait additional 24h to have it.

You really do get what you pay for. They are cheap and that's what you should expect on board. Their boarding desk in JFK is in the back of the airport with no signs to help you locate it. The line is absurdly long and you get the impression when you give them your luggage that you may never see it again. The security check also left a little something to be desired in terms of safety. On board my TV did not work and my chair did not recline. It was a great flight from NY to Madrid! If I was not so cheap I would go elsewhere and will in the future.

Milan-JFK with a 4-hour layover in Madrid. When I asked to confirm my exit row seats on the Milan-Madrid flight assigned on the phone we were told by the gate agent that we had them - row 9 of the 737. That somehow didn't sound right but two agents couldn't be wrong. Of course these were normal economy seats with the spacious 30-inch pitch that tall people love. Luckily the exit row seats (actually row 14) were open and we grabbed them just when the door closed. On Madrid-JFK leg I had paid for the "extra room" economy seats something I found out was available by chance on the AE web site. But remember that gate agent in Milan who assigned row 9 as exit? She somehow did know enough to recognize that the assigned "extra room" seats were actually a bulkhead row with no extra room. It took several conversations in Madrid to secure actual "extra room" seats which are in fact exit rows on the AirBus. This saved the trip back to JFK from being a miserable disaster. We were lucky I guess that things sort of worked out. But I hate to think how many travellers are victims of a staff that needs to go back to basic training. How does this airline function?

Flights to Gran Canaria. If you book from the UK and select seats online they won't be there when you get to the airport and you will end up at the back of the plane as we did the connection in Madrid was horrendous and all our liquids including duty free was taken off us because we had to connect by bus in another terminal! The flight to Gran Canaria was good. The return was the same at check-in seats we had booked via the UK were not there we were offered rows at the back of the plane on the flight from Madrid to London the change at Madrid was the same horrendous with lots of furious passengers due to the heat no air conditioning in the transit lounge and very little time to catch the next flight. Planes on all occasions never used a gate once everyone was via bus so the flight time is good but the rest of it was bad. We had 75 minutes to make our connection after we touched down but we were so far away from the terminals by the time we arrived at the plane it was 10 minutes before take off and people were still getting on 15 minutes after we should have taken off - this happened both ways!

London-Madrid flight with a connection to Caracas on Friday 24/08. Arriving at London Airport Air Europa staff informed us the flight was delayed and they had no additional information. Hours later they inform us that our connection flights will wait for us in Madrid. Arriving at Madrid Air Europa informed us to run to the door and on arrival we were informed that they did not know they had to wait and that we were never on the waiting list which was already full. We had to wait until the next day to take the first flight to Caracas. When we got to the flight they informed us that we had to make a stop on Santiago de Compostela. Arriving in Santiago de Compostela we were asked to get off the plane and were standing on the plane for 20 minutes until they informed that we could not get off the plane. There was no communication Air Europa staff had no information and the only thing they told us was that we made a claim It caused us a big problem to lose a day trip which they never took responsibility. Last time I travel with them.

Flew from JFK in New York to Madrid. The 10.05 pm flight took off at 2.20 am. Flew from Barcelona to Madrid. The 12.05 pm flight took off at 4 pm and fortunately the 5.35 flight from Madrid to JFK was also about an hour late so we didn't miss our connection. Needless to say the experience was terrible and the on ground support was poor. Nobody could explain the delays or even when the plane would be ready to take off. The messages posted about departures never change so that regardless when the flight boarded and was scheduled to depart only the original information appeared. In addition our dietary requests - made far enough in advance were ignored on the flight to Spain but honored on the return trip.

Missed a connecting flight with Virgin to Havana and Air Europa had the first flight out via Madrid. Unprofessional staff. No information about delays in English. Slowest boarding process I have ever been a part of. Very tight seats no video or custom entertainment (10h day flight).

You get what you pay for (and sometimes you don't) - they were cheapest across the Atlantic but the seatback video choice was poor and some machines for our party didn't work. But they were the cheapest. When you don't get what you pay for: we booked an Air Europa flight not knowing it was a codeshare flight with Spanair. Spanair went bust on 27 January. We got an email over 4 months later telling us our flight had been cancelled. Unimpressive? I think so.

London to Miami via Madrid. Long haul leg was awful the plane tatty and the service slow and snappy. An old aircraft with poor entertainment. There did not appear to be enough cabin staff to service the plane size. On our return the airline stranded us in Madrid due to a pilot strike. What was significant here is that it was a weekly regular dispute that the airline knew about but let passengers book and fly then knowingly allow them to become stranded. Worst of all they had made no attempt in Madrid to put staff on to assist inbound customers in Madrid airport. Young families were in floods of tears with Air Europa staff hiding away to avoid facing them. Even if this had not happened to us I would still avoid this airline - the worst I have flown with. Avoid at all cost.

I read these reviews before I flew and thought that they must be one offs but that was until I experienced an Air Europa flight. Recently flew indirectly to Havana via Madrid. Going out we had a 45minute delay which was nothing compared to what we experienced on the way back. The plane was as expected - not much legroom but comfortable enough for the price paid. Flying back was a disaster - flight from Havana to Madrid was delayed by 6 hours meaning we missed our connecting flight to London. The worst part was not knowing what was going on. Air Europa were unapologetic and couldn't answer our questions about what would happen when we got to Madrid. They did nothing to reassure us and left us feeling completely vulnerable. When we arrived in Madrid a representative told us that the next flight they could get us on would be in 24hours they did offer to put us up in a hotel for the night but we'd had enough by this point and paid 200 euros to get on an EasyJet flight home.