I try to give IB credit whenever I can, and they are greatly improved from a few years ago, however it is still a mixed bag making it necessary for potential pax to know what they are getting into. The good: Air Nostrum is almost always quite good (their regional airline), and inflight service is somewhere between OK and good on half the IB mainline flights (however the other half can be pretty bad, though there is definite improvement each month). The bad: ground service is abysmal, either at MAD or at US airports. Things that other airlines do automatically or within a few seconds are either impossible to do or take hours; for example, changing a full-fare business class ticket from one flight to a different one (same destination and date, but different time, took over an hour at MAD). Unbelievable, except it happens over and over again. It isn't a "Spanish culture" phenomenon, but an IB thing (AA at MAD doesn't have this behaviour and has delightful Spanish staff).