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Hitting up Peru with Iberia – an enjoyable novelty
Despite being a long-time (often suffering) OneWorld fanboy and making a fair few trips to Latin America recently, it has been well over a decade since I last flew Iberia. So I was fairly excited to be trying their business class product again, on a trip from LHR to Lima in Peru, via Madrid.
Sadly my long-haul segment was not in one of the new door-tastic A350s, but instead was on one of the older A350s. Despite this, I did like the hard product quite a lot.
It was intuitive, spacious enough, and fairly comfortable (with a thick mattress protector and good firm pillow). The alternate window seats also gave enough privacy, and the IFE headphones were fine too.
Business class service – a little bit meh
The food and drink was very solid, although truth be told, it was the service – on both flights, too – that let it down.
The crew were swift enough, professional enough, and friendly enough, but it was also very robotic, kind of ‘minimally invested’, and a little cold and flat. For example in my basic interactions with probably about six crew across the two long segments, there was hardly a smile, and at best a stoical and slightly neutral face, and not much else!
Lounging around in Madrid’s international airport
In a funny way this matches my experiences of both the airport and lounge in Madrid too. It is well documented already, but Madrid’s Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport is vast and airy, but it is also a weirdly designed and confusing space to actually use.
It takes more time than you would expect to get around, and the signage is also not at all obvious or clear – so do make sure to give yourself extra time, and don’t be complacent about where you are headed. In fact, despite the fact that I am a fairly well-travelled middle aged human, I actually managed to fail at connections (from London) and ended up going through passport control twice!
The upside of this was that I was able to experience the (Priority Pass) Anea Sala VIP Lounge in terminal 4, before also sampling the fairly new proper Iberia lounge proper – the Premium Lounge Velazquez.
The former was medium-sized, fairly calm and well-stocked (especially on the drinks side, though food was less impressive), while the latter was a mixed affair.
Spacious, and stretched alongside a lot of window..
Specifically, Iberia’s main lounge is a long, thin space, which is fine for a short lay-over, but a far cry from anywhere where you might want or need to spend several hours.
I think I felt this way as due to the shape of the lounge, and the entrance being set right in the middle, it drives a lot of footfall up and down, right past all the seating spaces and the sweeping views of the atrium.
That said, at one end is a nice little bar tucked around the corner, while at the other end there is a large-ish and more formal dining area.
Crucially the lounge did one thing absolutely right; a sweet station at each end.
Jumping back to the flight itself, I was in 2A for the outbound, and 4A for the return (intentionally for both as the window is much more protected from footfall and noise/light than in the aisle), and I’d probably recommend 4 as 2 was a little too close to the galley which was a little noisy pre and post service.
I quite liked the amenity bags, although the eye mask was a little uncomfortable (especially compared to BA’s great White Company ones), and the toothbrush was rubbish. One small example of my service gripe earlier was after a fairly rushed and indifferent meal service, where I had one small glass of wine, I asked for a top up and, and it never arrived. No biggie, but it was symptomatic of a crew who didn’t really want to be there.
Short haul biz on Iberia
I also flew Iberia metal on my short-haul trip back to LHR from MAD – in a A320neo – which was pretty much exactly the same as BA’s Club Europe experience. Two interesting differences were that one, they policed group 0 properly (which I was included on for the first time in my life, as am only Gold, not GLL), and then on board the overhead cabins in business had labels on them saying ‘Reserved for Business’. Given the number of spats I have seen over people putting their bags in at the front and walking way back in the plane, it kept that ‘privilege’ in place more firmly than with BA.
Read more on this in my related review of the JW Marriott in Lima – and the lounge in Jorge Chávez International Airport – but after landing in Lima (where we got an always-kind-of-cute smattering of applause from the back of the plane thanks to a super smooth touchdown), it was a 45 minute Uber ride (around £14 for a ‘Comfort’ ride, so pretty cheap) to Miraflores.
Latin America is always fun, and Peru was a wonderful treat. Especially for approx £500 + 80k avios (and a ‘solo’ companion voucher). Next trips will be to Singapore and then Abu Dhabi, so watch this space!
2 comments
Hey Gus,
Great read!
I agree with you about IB crew, my feeling towards them is exactly as you say. I find them efficient which is a plus (especially on a night flight). But they really do not engage at all although this could be a little bit a language thing. The last flight I did with IB (MAD-EZE) I travelled with the other half who speaks fluent Spanish. He was sat in front of me and I noticed that the crew were far more chatty and engaging with him in Spanish than with me in English.
MAD is form over substance. Very poor signage with over reliance upon usually congested escalators to move around. T4S transfer is particularly poor but I’ve found that when busy, running up the stairs instead of using the escalator easily cuts out 100 pax in front of you. As for IB staff, mixed bag but I find some of the women can be quite engaging when they want to. Def had some good laughs with them in the past.
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