IB/BA LHR-MAD Pros and Cons
 

Hi all,

First of all, I am Spanish but living in the UK, so apologies in advance for any non-native English speaker mistakes I could make when I post!

I have been reading this forum for a few years already but never posted until now. I thought posting my review of the LHR-MAD route would be a good start for me!

I fly LHR-MAD quite frequently for leisure and business (2-3 times per month at least, sometimes even more frequently). I fly in both cabins Y and J regularly. These are, in my opinion, the pros and cons when choosing IB or BA in the route.

IB

Pros
- In my opinion, Business class catering is, by far, MUCH better than in BA.
- Free newspaper when flying in J.
- Arrives and departs to/from T4 in MAD, with dedicated border desks for the route, which makes the border crossing very quick.
- If you are lucky, A330 aircraft is commonly used if taking BA506/IB3179 departing at 19:10 from LHR, which comes with the new IB IFE y both cabins and fully flat bed in J class.
- Better punctuality stats.

Cons
- No free food in Economy class.
- Fewer legroom in Economy class.

BA

Pros
- Extra legroom in ET class.
- Free food/drinks in ET class (although it is usually crap).

Cons
- Departs and arrives from/to T4S in MAD (except when flying from to/from LCY), which makes you take the train to get to the main T4 terminal.
- Busier border at T4S than in T4.

As a summary, when flying Economy I normally choose IB if I can, just to avoid having to take the train from T4S. When flying Business/CE class, I highly recommend IB as well for the quality of the food.

My last MAD-LHR was in Y on the IB A346, and honestly, it was so much better than BA. I got a few drinks from the lounge (which is much nicer in T4S, so another point to BA LHR services), had a pair of seats to myself (the rear cabin was nearly empty), and watched a film as the sun set. Very pleasant! However, had the flight been full or on a narrowbody, then of course it'd have been BA + a free G&T in a heartbeat! The crew are better on BA too IMO.

I think you've summed it up pretty well Etxebas. The best thing about IB business class is they serve real food. It's just a shame that there's no snack/drinks in economy.

Looks like your command of English is just fine. :D

BA does have good crew, but I've always found Iberia's to be much more attentive in economy (probably because they have more time!). :p

Since IAG has been saying so much about commonality (particularly aircraft BFE), I wonder why they see fit to permit IB's catering to be much better.

I wonder if this means that in the five to ten year period BA's shorthaul premium catering will get better or IB's will get worse.

While you do have to pay, IB's BoB is far superior to anything BA serve in Y.

Welcome to FT Etxebas, official welcomes along shortly I'm sure.

I would largely agree with your assessment, a couple of additional points to consider:

T4S (BA) pro : better lounge
T4 (IB) pro : much better for domestic / Schengen connections
BA pro / IB con (if booking via BA) : BA online & app superior for seat selection, check-in etc IME

I do prefer IB in business class for that route these days. Must say that I hadn't noticed better legroom in BA ET vs IB mainline Y, but will take your word for it.

Presumably the A330/340 flights on IB arrive/depart T4S though?

I fly London-MAD route quite frequently too (my sister lives there) and I usually try to avoid Iberia as much as possible to be honest. For starters: crew on BA operated flights is always amazing - I'd say BA's crew in Euro Traveller is much nicer than IB's crew in J. If I every choose to fly IB it's either A330/A340 or BA being way more expensive than IB.

Why I don't like flying with Iberia?
* I find food offering on IB inferior to BA's - maybe that's a matter of taste, but I quite like BA's CE catering
* Any booking made with Iberia - they remove my Executive Club number from the booking every 2 weeks, glad MyFlights app sends me notifications
* Madrid's TS4 lounge is way better than T4 one, and I get to see some planes (I'm a plane spotter ;-))
* BA's twitter team usually super helpful and quick to resolve any issues, Iberia's twitter team is pretty much useless
* Oh and most annoying thing - seat belt sign being turned on 45 minutes before landing at LHR... so I can't use my laptop. if there's additional holding, then it may be an hour before we actually land... on BA they usually turn on seat belt sing 10-15 minutes before landing allowing me to maximise my work time on a plane...

I have never understood why airlines feel they must offer something 'free' but poor in any cabin. I would much rather pay for something decent and would happily pay GBP 20 for a decent curry in F or CW, and perhaps GBP 10 for a meat platter and salad in CE.

Welcome to FT Etxebas :)

The IB wide body flights are a great way to travel between LHR and MAD. The flight is just long enough to watch a full movie too. I’ve done a few of these in recent months and lucked out by scoring the new business class cabin on each occasion on a mixture of A332, A333, and A346 (AKA the A345 in Iberia’s parlance).

A couple of anecdotal points - LHR T5C and MAD T4S were used. As others have said, T4S has the advantage of the Sala Velazquez lounge which I have found to be blissfully peaceful before the BA7056 leaves for London.

I flew to LHR-MAD-LHR in April. IB516 out and BA back, both in J.


The IB crew were mixed (one helpful, two very much) and the BA service was definitely better. Food was comparable I found, but getting the IB flatbed/IFE was clearly far superior to the BA 'J'. Next time will definitely try to get IB both ways...

Yes, one good thing about that lounge is that it is usually full only later at night, when many flights to Latin America leave.

Iberia's catering for Vegetarians is bloody awful and the T4 lounge food offering is a bit lacklustre.

A BA flight from T4S wins every time for me, except the daily Iberia widebody (A330/340) which is by far the best thing about the route!!

I had the 'pleasure' of the T4S lounge last Monday morning after arriving on the 6.15am - 9.45am BA flight and was transferring to the 1pm AA service to MIA. To say the lounge was packed would be an understatement - there were literally no seats until approx 11.30am when the morning rush cleared out. I may have caught a bad day, but I've never seen a principal lounge at an airlines main hub so crowded!

Pilot37

I find the IB crews miserable compared to BA.
For the same price I resent paying for food and drink when in Y so will always choose BA. Plus the T4S lounge is fantastic - ironic it has to be BA plane in most instances to get that.
In J I agree the daily widebody rotation is a big plus for IB.

An obscure additional IB 'benefit', on the LON-MAD bit only - but only when doing a sameday return.

IB arrivals into MAD at T4 are within the Schengen zone of the terminal, and thus you are mixed with the departing passengers. This means you can use the departure lounge (Dali, I think) in T4 as an 'arrivals' lounge of sorts, before exiting the airport.

I did a friday night A330-200 trip in business on basically a brand new plane about a month ago, and whilst the product was excellent the crew were inattentive to say the least. About an hour elapsed before i got so much as a drink, and they did the meal service anticlockwise from 1A, so sitting in 1G i was served last and had no choice. It was all rather lacklustre, i would take BA any day, although no denying the nice seat and excellent IFE (compared to BA seat and no IFE!). It landed into T4S.

Am I right in saying that there is no RFS on IB whereas there is on BA?

Correct. This includes BA prime flights operated by IB

I fly this route several times a month and I mix and match between the 2.

If I fly iberia long haul, I always connect onto iberia to LHR otherwise the bag always goes missing. Iberia to BA connected bags has gone missing, for several days, 12 out of 12 times. The baggage services at LHR actually used to jokingly say "You again" lol

If I am hand baggage only, I prefer LCY route with BA or Iberia all of the way because of the gate connections. This is always in business and I do think the catering is better, although the drinks service is not as good.

Most of the time however I fly BA. Economy if I have checked bags or club europe if not.

Whenever anything has gone wrong BA has looked after me better. Iberia seems to shrug their shoulders and just say sorry

avoid air nostrum business class! they literally give you a pastry on a full service tray lol

I fly the MAD-LON (LGW with I2, LHR with IB or BA) regularly and for me it is all about price and convenience.

Living in Valencia I am able to get some really good prices on Business Class tickets via Madrid and racked up loads of points to get me to 1500TPs within 6 months. 20TPs on the Air Nostrum's (vile aircraft but I actually quite like the snacks on board for a 30 minute flight).

In terms of the Iberia and BA service for me it is much of a muchness. I prefer the IB catering as its more varied and interesting, and the wines are better too. I actually think the crew - while perhaps a little more lackadaisical - are arguably more genuine. For instance I lost my phone (an iphone 6 FWIW) down the sideof one of the old A330 style business seats (the 2x2x2 type). I couldn't fish it out - but sure enough I had three sterling cabin crew ladies pulling the seat apart and fishing it out with a coathanger. It took them 20 minutes. It was awkward to receive so much attention but they were genuinely lovely and never gave up.

The widebody service is excellent with Iberia. Relaxing, good food (it's nice to get a printed menu!) and bar, and feels like great value for money. The food selections also seems to have had more attention. Rather than 'chicken or beef' you'll get a choice of steer-eye beef fillet with a Cordoba-style sauce or a stuffed pasta with XXX for example- it feels a bit more civilised than a chicken skewer or a plate of salad and cold cuts. A decent Ribera del Duero or Rioja beats Castelnau any day for me.

It sounds naff but I like the fact that Iberia always play background music on boarding and on landing.... The flat beds are great to lounge on. I've never done IB economy on the A330/A340 though.

BA economy is perhaps better if all you want is a drink - but today I was on a flight in economy and they had a Tuna Nicoise sandwich or a cheese sandwich. I don't like eggs or cheese so I was stumped with no onboard menu to purchase from. A bag of nuts would have been nice...

Iberia Express - while often good value (make sure you book via Iberia rather than the I2 website if you want the TPs) - is not on the same level. The newer planes have USB charging and limit wifi entertainment - but the food (even in Business) is quite substandard.

With all of the route options I'd weigh up the benefits of the widebodies (I've had the Longhaul 767 with BA too with lie flat - although more often than not its the Shorthaul variant) with the downside that you may need to negotiate either T4S (better lounge but you need to take the transit - and you also may need to reclear MAD security if connecting back into the regular T4 - whereas you don't if you're doing the reverse) and/or deal with the B or C gates at T5 LHR - although in my experience the BA 767s normally leave from 5A.


As for the T4S Valazquez lounge - yes it is nicer than the Dali - but it drives me nuts that they don't label the hot food (in Spanish or English) -it usually looks nice but it's often impossible to tell what it is!! I think BA's GC and GF in T5 are both superior (apart from the lack of Haagen Dazs and donuts!!) but MAD still has some of the best OW lounges in Europe.

Am I the only person who really doesn't like the food at the Velazquez lounge?!

The lounge was OK. Really, just OK. Much prefer the LHR T5 lounges.

Agree in almost everything. I usually mix, LHR-MAD on IB and MAD-LHR on BA, just for the times.

Correct, but a leg in J on the IB widebody is well worth the small extra outlay.

I quite like the food in the Velazquez lounge but I should qualify this by saying I'm really not a regular traveller out of MAD with only 4-6 flights out of T4/T4S per annum. The base menu provides enough for me to concoct a tasty snack. However, if I was a more regular user, I'd probably become bored of the selection which hasn't really changed much in the last 2-3 years.

I had really awful Iberia experiences about 10 years ago and chose never to fly them again. However, I recently booked a LHR-MAD fare which included one sector operated by IB. I was pleasantly surprised at the improvement. We flew out to Madrid on an A330 and although food and drink in Y is not free, we managed to use the inflight entertainment. Clean aircraft, good crew and all in all a good experience. The return was on a very old BA 767 and that's where the product mix confuses flyers. "What no films?" a colleague mentioned. The complimentary G and T and thumb sized chicken roll helped appease him. The 767 may be old but you have to love them.

I always tend to think that the RFS is a great thing but have just noticed that Avios booked flights from LHR to MAD on iberia.com are cheaper than the RFS ones on ba.com. So the RFS isn't such a bargain, after all. I remember reading about this on here a while back.Tis something to do with taxes being low, I think. Or something like that.

I see that the Avios required are a bit lower, but there's no RFS, so the cash amount is higher (about £43 vs £17.50), at least on BA operated flights.

Yeah, weird, I just looked again and noticed that it doesn't apply to all flights. The Iberia ones are cheaper, I think. Or it might just be because there's the 'blue class' on Iberia for some of the flights, which is cheaper than the usual Economy Avios fare.

It's just that it isn't "free". You've already paid for your meals, they are part of service.

** Am aware that I am resurrecting an old thread but it seems the most relevant to the topic**

Am flying the IB LHR / MAD A330 for the first time (in J) next week. Have flown the 340 a few times but never the 330. First time on this a/c.

So will be interested to see how that stacks up against the 340 and the BA 777

To be honest, you'd be better off looking at the IB forum where there is a lot of information on that. the 330 in J is basically equivalent to the newer 340s so very good especially for such a short flight. I personally like the IB J seat better than standard CW ones though when BA decide to fly their new 350s to MAD which they will undoubtedly do at some point or other, that will be a different sorry I'm sure!

Yeah I know it's discussed over there but as I tend to fly BA bookings with occasional reluctant IB codeshare sectors I just chucked it in here.

It was a reasonably straightforward choice as I can get the flight and still do all the meetings I need to in London first, and J was only a modest difference to economy at the time, and I can therefore have dinner and then just go straight to bed when I get to the hotel. So it's a relatively civilised flight I guess.