Originally Posted by
TrojanTraveler
I have flown this route many times, usually padding the connection at 2 1/2 hours. I assume that you have two separate tickets as one is award and one is revenue.
I don't know your fare class and Iberia's current standby policies (and your date of travel), but you should ask on the Iberia board (may be other European airline board) what the policies are regarding standby on Iberia if you miss your Spanish domestic flight. There are frequent flights between MAD and AGP on Iberia, and if you are travelling on a day/time when the plan isn't full, free standby might be allowed. I would recommend that you do this prior to purchasing the Air Europa tickets.
If you are flying the same route back, you might want to check how long you have to connect back in MAD. If you miss the DL flight, the only realistic routing to get back to JFK same day would be AF to CDG, and, well, you'll be in CDG. And your award ticket might not be honered by AF (since the CDG-JFK flights will have departed by the time you get there), and you could be stuck in the back.
Mrs. Air Brian and I have a place near AGP and we've connected DL-IB many times, but never on that notice. In Sept we're doing 1:40 and that will be tight, but we know the system so I think we'll be fine. The good is that IB will generally just let you on the next flight (in my experience - but Mrs. Air is very persuasive), but if there isn't room the best option may be to take the train down. In any event, good luck but I'd change to a later flight...