Reviewing Iberia Airlines
Updated August 2024.
Iberia is the Spanish flag carrier. Funny enough, through all my years of travel I’ve never flown Iberia until just a few months ago when I flew them Malaga – Madrid – Mexico City (and back).
So here’s my Iberia Airlines review: the good, the unusual and the bad.
(Don’t miss the video at the end: I tell you about the stewardess who got pissed off at me and have some great footage of the final approach to Mexico City).
Iberia Airlines – the Good
Cost. Iberia generally has very competitively pricing to most destinations and really only has one competitor if flying to Mexico City. That’s Aeromexico (I’ve flown them many times, they’re a good airline). But if you’re flying from Spain from a city other than Madrid, Aeromexico can’t compete with Iberia on price. And in this case I was starting my journey in Malaga.
The Itinerary. As I say, when flying Spain to Mexico you have 2 direct options: Iberia or Aeromexico. Usually each fly three times daily between the two cities but on this day Aeromexico only flew 1 flight and it was arriving early in the morning. The Iberia flight I chose was leaving Malaga at 9 am, had a 2 hour stopover in Madrid, and arrived in Mexico City at 5:30 PM local time. That was a perfect itinerary for me – I like arriving late afternoon/early evening after a long flight. It allows me time to get to the hotel, have a meal and a beer and a decent night’s sleep so that I can wake up fresh the next day. But there is another reason to fly Iberia and not Aeromexico when flying through Madrid (see my next point).
Terminal 4/Terminal 4s. We’ve been through Madrid’s Barajas airport before and it was a shitty experience through Terminal 1. BUT…Iberia flies out of the new Terminals 4 and 4s. Both are new and sparkling. Terminal 4 receives flights from within the Schengen. Terminal 4s, which is reached through an underground railway, has non-Schengen (ie. long haul) flights. In my case I arrived at Terminal 4 from Malaga and took the railway to Terminal 4s for my flight to Mexico City. It was ultra-modern and all went super smoothly and, to my surprise, I didn’t have to undergo another security check when transiting. Excellent.
Aeromexico flies through Terminal 1 and not Terminal 4. Terminal 1 is the old terminal and it’s not good at all…
Equipment. Iberia planes are ultra-modern. I flew the Airbus 350 on the Madrid – Mexico City leg which is Airbus’s reply to Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner (which is what Aeromexico flies). Very nice.
On Time. There were no delays or issues on any of my 4 flights. All went according to schedule, in fact I arrived in Mexico City an hour ahead of time (they listed Madrid – Mexico City as taking 12 hours but it in fact took 11 hours).
Food service. Very good. We were served a dinner service about an hour into our flight. I had some kind of chicken curry dish which was very good. It came with the usual wine, beer, soft drinks. Later on they served us sandwiches.
Really, the first 5 points above are what are the most important when choosing an airline. You want to get where you’re going on time without too much stress or hassle. And Iberia definitely delivered on all that.
But Iberia wasn’t perfect.
Iberia Airlines – the unusual
Boarding process. Iberia boards people in groups: Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, Group 4 – I don’t know the logical sense of it but it doesn’t seem to work.
- You end up waiting in the jet bridge for 15 minutes. Why would they start boarding when the plane isn’t ready to board? What’s the sense of boarding when you’ll be waiting – standing in the heat – for 15 minutes on the jet bridge? It happened on all of my Iberia flights.
- The Spanish like to stow their bags in the front rows. On both of my long haul flights I got to my seat and saw that there was no room for my overhead luggage. How can this be? It was especially bad on the Mexico City – Madrid flight where I was in row 4. There was no room anywhere and I had to go back to row 12 to find a space for my bag. So what’s the big deal you ask? First of all, if you’re in row 4 and have to go to row 12 to put up your bag, you then have to go back to row 4 against traffic (with dirty glares all the way). Secondly, when deplaning, you have to go back to row 12 to get your bag when everyone is moving forward to get out. You have to wait for everyone to get out. So despite being in row 4 I was one of the last people off the plane. It was an inconvenience – but if I had a connecting flight I would be pissed to shit. Why does all this happen? People get on the plane and dump their bags in the first available overhead bin so they can get at them on the way out. I saw them. Iberia stewardesses should be telling passengers to place their bags in the overhead bins above their seat, not just anywhere it suits them. But honestly I don’t know if they really care….(next, on “the bad”).
I’ve never experienced long waits on jet bridges or the inability to stow my carryon before – these experiences were unique to Iberia. And these should be easy things to fix, right?
Iberia Airlines – the Bad
Service. Overall I wasn’t impressed. Stewardesses and Stewards weren’t very friendly. They weren’t overtly unfriendly (except for the example in my video below) but they weren’t friendly, helpful, and they weren’t around whenever you would have wanted one around. In fact they seemed to have disappeared for about 7 hours during my Madrid – Mexico City flight. Maybe they aren’t treated very well by the airline? They reminded me of Air Canada staff before Air Canada was privatized. Another thing I noticed: during the entirety of the 11 hour flight I never noticed a steward/stewardess going into the bathroom to clean (something I always pay attention to because airplane bathrooms repulse me).
The beginning of this video needs explaining. I decided to video the configuration on the Malaga – Madrid flight. I filmed about 5 seconds. Next thing I know I had a stewardess in my face telling me that I shouldn’t be filming, that it was illegal blah blah. First time that’s ever happened. That’s the story.
My overall impression of Iberia? They’ll get you from A to B on time, at a good price and on good planes. That’s the most important thing when travelling. All the complaints I’ve listed have to do with the personnel side of their operations so service could be improved. Overall though, while I didn’t love Iberia, the pluses (for me) far outweigh the negatives and I would use them again (and since I often fly to Mexico I know I’ll be choosing them again).
Have you flown Iberia? What was your experience?
Update: Iberia Review #2 (aka the crappy things about Iberia)
Related: A Review of Ukrainian Airlines
Related: A Review of Air Baltic
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I havent flown Iberia and their reputation isnt great with service, which your experience seems to show. Airplane etiquette is something that needs to be enforced as the world and its people care less and less about others and how what they do negatively affects others sadly. This is a perfect example. its like trying to go across an intersection behind a car who suddenly pops on their indicator to turn right and you cant get into the other lane. If they’d done it at the red light, well you’d know and have the option to change lanes. but there is no thought towards the impact on the car behind them, as here there is no thought to the impact on the other passengers who will be left without a spot for their bags anywhere near them. i dont mean to moan but i do it involuntarily Frank. People dont give a crap about anyone bar themselves and whoever they are with on planes. As George Constanza once said ‘We’re supposed to be living in a SOCIETY!’
Bang on Andrew. People do care less about others and it’s hard not to get jaded.
My first trip to Europe was in 1994 with Iberia from Bogotá to Madrid with a stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico as I remember service was good but the stewardess/steward used a perfume or lotion that was not very nice. We never used Iberia again until 2019 and we will be using it again this year – both times, especially this one, because of the price. I am paying the same for the two of us for the flight that I paid before for one of us. I also think it is because of covid-19. I am going to pay attention to the overhead bins on my seat.
Terminal 4 (I think was 4S) was our terminal in 2017, we were flying American Airlines and at 2 pm the following day we would take Air Europe Madrid-Rome. The flight was delayed in Miami and left almost 4 hours later but the flight Miami-Madrid was arriving in Madrid before 8:30 AM (enough time to take the 2 pm plane) when we were waiting for our luggage. The carousel was very slow delivering bags one by one with intervals of one minute or more between bags. Of course when we got to terminal 1 our plane had left to Rome like 3 minutes ago. If the bags were delivered at a regular speed we could have been on that plane. Of course we lost our ticket, had to buy a new one for 3 days later (next available), pay 3 nights hotel in Madrid, lose 3 nights on our AIRBNB apartment in Rome and our paid tour of the Coliseum/Forum. So, unless the connection is with the same airline, we will travel to a city different to the one we arrived at least one day latter.
What about covid-19, you didn’t mention if situation is better or worse in Spain, we are at 3 months from our trip and I stopped making any reservation.
Say hello to Lissette
Hi Carlos.
Ouff, what a nightmare you’ve described. Connections are always a fear of mine and I’m always careful about different airlines and different terminals. But I’ve been lucky many many times catching connections with minutes to spare (fortunately no experiences like yours).
The situation is worse here (ie. infection numbers high) Carlos but I don’t think Spain is going to be closing borders to provinces or restricting travel in any way. In fact we decided yesterday that we’ll take a 3 week trip (starting next week) around Spain. Unlike the last few years, most hotels seem to be open. I think people have just had enough of putting their lives on hold plus with Omicron not being as dangerous I think authorities are being more relaxed. We just had our booster last week so we just decided that it was time to start travelling again. It’s also a good time because there’s still a lot of people NOT travelling so places won’t be full of tourists.
I think you are safe making plans. Many European countries are actually starting to relax the restrictions because infections are predicted to peak soon. See this post on France24.
So for now I think you’re ok making plans.
Lissette says hi back 🙂
It’s kind of hard to judge any airline by just a couple of experiences, but I think we all tend to do that. I usually fly SAS because I live in Scandinavia. My experiences have been mixed but generally good overall, especially on transatlantic flights.
There is a major reason I fly SAS or a Star Alliance airline, and that is because I am working towards Eurobonus Gold. After 10 consecutive years as a Gold member, I get to be a lifetime Gold member. Ok, at my age, that might not mean much but I like the idea. I like the perks.
Aside from that, I avoid some airlines because I just seem to have really bad experiences. For example, I have flown KLM/Air France (merged) with not very good results: a canceled Air France flight because of a bird strike in Montevideo that threw off my entire itinerary by 3 days; arriving exactly one hour late in Paris from Tokyo (KLM) because, incredibly and I still don’t get how it happened, the airplane clock was off by an hour (cost the airline a small fortune as they had to put hundreds of people up for the night) thus delaying my trip by a day; and on my last flight with KLM being stuck in Amsterdam for hours because of a mechanical issue, then being rerouted through Atlanta where I had to stay overnight to get up early for my next flight. It’s incredible that half of my flights with these two airlines ended up like this: having to stay overnight at hotels (paid by them, but still). To top it off it looked like KLM or Delta had run my new luggage through a shredder.
Hi Edith. You mentioned previously having been re-routed through Atlanta but didn’t realize that you’ll had such bad luck with KLM/Air France. I’ve had better luck but except for last year (flew Air France Madrid – Paris -Montreal) most of my flights with these airlines were quite a long time ago. Unfortunately many airlines now just seem to be almost the same (bland with no identity). Best airline we’ve had in the last 6 years was flying British Airways London – Cape Town. Have also recently flown airlines like Turkish Airlines and Qatar (which have both won awards) but really wasn’t that impressed. Best in my books are some of the Asian Airlines.
We booked Iberia to bring us home direct from Quito, Ecuador to Madrid. We paid over €2,300 for two single business class tickets. My husband is partially disabled, hence the need for comfort. A month or so later, they emailed me a “change”. The flight was now operating an entire day earlier and no alternative fir weeks! Well, we were due to be in Galapagos that day, so not possible. I spent hours finding an alternative (dearer, with a 6-hour stopover in Bogota 🙁 ), then many more hours fighting the Iberia website, trying to get a refund. Their T&C promised an easy refund for business class bookings, even if we wished to cancel the day before. Finally, I gave up and tried to ring — all day. Meanwhile, I received an email saying I’d accepted a voucher, valid for a year! What? This was a trip of a lifetime, not repeatable! There followed many hours of waiting on the phone over some weeks and several heated discussions. After a couple of months with no progress, I handed the problem to my bank. They agreed it was totally unacceptable, but it still took them several months to winkle my money out of that damned company. But I got every cent in the end! What a stinking level of service from a company with Iberia’s reputation 🙁 .
I flew from Mexico City to Paris via Madrid with my wife. When we arrived to Paris and tried to open our suitcases, we noticed that the locks were missing and one of the handles was broken. Later we found that some articles were stolen: one jacket, some snacks. They worth around $80 dollars.
One of the ladies in the registration desk in Mexico airport was kind of rude with us when registering our suitcases, asking for an invitation letter from our daughter and tellinh us it was probably thet we were returned “in the same flight” to Mexico.
The seat were not comfortable for an eleven hours flight, eventhough we paid extra money for a better seat.
My final word: i will never fly with Iberia again.
That was odd about the possible need for a letter from your daughter, but rules to enter countries are changing fast these days, I have a Uruguayan friend who visits the EU about once every 3 years. Even though he didn’t need a visa before, he will need an ETIAS visa waiver starting late this year. Visitors from about 60 countries, including the US, Canada, and Mexico, will need one to enter a Schengen country. I have seen people rejected by airlines several times at the counter: when a passport is not valid at least 6 months from the date of the trip even though they had a valid visa; a traveler had an invitation from a foreign government but didn’t realize he had to get a visa; and, in May of last year, a lady going to visit her mother in the US during the pandemic was denied a boarding pass because only US citizens and US residents could enter the US then. When an airline refuses to let a person fly, there is no way that person is going to get on that plane, even if the person is in the right. 😉
Thanks Emilio. Sorry to hear about your negative experience. Funny, I paid for a better seat as well and I was a bit disappointed (more leg room, but very tight with the guy next to me).