Iberia

Over the past week and ahead of its debut on the Madrid – Boston route on 14 November, Iberia was meant to be operating its first A321XLRs on orientation flights within Europe, but due to unforeseen delays, the first flights took place yesterday and I managed to catch up with the aircraft in Paris as it made its way back to its home base in Madrid on just its second ever flight with paying passengers.

A couple of days ago, I published a review of the Iberia A320 short-haul Business Class cabin, so as my very next flight was on the same aircraft type but in the Economy Class cabin, I thought it would be interesting to review that and to see how the two compare.

After a recent Iberia Business Class flight between London and Madrid, I found myself with time to spare at Madrid's Barajas Airport, and that meant that I could take a look inside the Iberia Premium Lounge Velazquez at Madrid T4S which I knew had been given a small makeover since the last time I had visited.

Most of my intra-Europe flying is done in Economy Class cabins because I (mostly) don't see the value in paying for short-haul European Business Class cabins, but this flight was part of a larger transatlantic Business Class itinerary and so I found myself sitting 'up front' on an Iberia A320neo flying between London and Madrid.

Iberia has confirmed that it will be increasing the number of flights that it offers on its route between Madrid and Dallas and that it has now followed in the footsteps of British Airways by moving its New York JFK operations into Terminal 8 alongside American Airlines.

Back in November, Iberia announced that it had plans to launch two new routes between Madrid and the United States from April 2022. The new routes were to serve Dallas and Washington D.C. but at the time of the original announcement no schedule information was provided and no firm start dates were offered up either. Today, that changed.

Iberia currently flys its Airbus A330-200 between Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and a combination of an incredibly generous Iberia promotion from last year and near-perfect reward flight availability (for me) saw me book a roundtrip Business Class fare on this route for just 85,000 Avios + taxes.

I recently took the opportunity to try out the Iberia A350 Business Class cabin while the airline was still flying its newest aircraft on short-haul routes around Europe. After my flight landed I took the opportunity to walk a little further back in the aircraft to see what the A350's Premium Economy & Economy Class cabins looked like.

Iberia took delivery of its first two Airbus A350s back in July and since then it has mostly been flying them on various short-haul routes around Europe as the airline gets its crews accustomed to the new aircraft. The first Iberia A350 finally flew its inaugural long-haul flight in early August when it took over one of the airline’s two Madrid – New York JFK flights while the second A350 took over the second flight on the New York route this Saturday just gone (1 September).

As regular readers of this blog will know I like to try out new aircraft and new premium cabins in the most cost effective way I can find. This usually involves booking flights on new aircraft while the airlines are testing them out on short-haul routes before letting them loose on the longer routes they were designed to fly.

I have done more than my fair share of American Airlines bashing over the past two years (it has been well deserved) but, right now, I'm incredibly grateful for some truly fantastic service from the airline after it got us out of a serious mess of Iberia's making.

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In Part 1 of this review I took a look at the Business Class seat that Iberia has installed on its A330-300 aircraft and in this part I'll take a look at the onboard Wifi, entertainment options, the food and the service. Bearing in mind this wasn't exactly the longest flight in the world I did somehow manage to get a really goof feel for what the aircraft offers.

A few months ago I noticed that Iberia was in the habit of scheduling its wide-body A330 aircraft on its Madrid - London route and, as I hadn't checked out Iberia's long-haul Business Class cabin in the past, this seemed like a good way to see what the carrier offers. Sure, I wouldn't exactly get the full long-haul experience...but I would get a good look at the cabin, the seat and I'd get to see what the Iberia service was like.