ehallison

Flying in J on an overnight flight from North America to Europe - is there a material difference in these seats? I've read reviews of both (and I've flown on the Iberia plane before - it was fine, although felt a little cramped) but haven't been able to find a comparison of the 2. On Seatguru it looks like the BA seats are 1" wider and 1" longer but not sure if that makes a huge difference.

There are other expense (fuel surcharge!!) and schedule considerations to factor in, but I was wondering if the seat should be a factor in our decision.

ermis177

For me no. I would choose the cheapest option. What’s your final stop? Madrid lounge is very decent with good food, showers and so on. BA crew is usually much better compare to Iberia but I wouldn’t choose the flight due to crew.

13901

Fastest route wins for me. A plane is a means to an end.

Genius1

The A350 is a superior aircraft to the A330 due to lower altitude pressurisation and less engine noise.

Geordie405

So I’ve literally just flown DFW - MAD on the IB A330 so can probably give some insight.

If you’re a solo traveller then you probably want one of the window seats - so the A or L seats. They are the best in terms of privacy and have the foot “coffin”

The C, D, H and J seats are all aisle and have the one major defect in that there’s no real enclosure for your legs / feet and so if you have the seat in bed mode then your legs are exposed in the aisle. If you look at other online reviews you’ll see what I mean as I’m probably not explaining myself very well.

The E and G seats are known as the honeymoon pair and are ideal for passengers travelling together as a couple. This photo should give you an idea:




Now compared with the BA A350 the IB A330 is pretty dated. The club suites on BA are very nice indeed although they are really suited to solo travellers. If you’re flying as a couple then even the middle pairs on BA require you to lean in to be able to chat etc.

BA will also been pretty rigid in cabin service which means that one person in the middle pair gets served by one CC and the other passenger by the CC working the other side of the plane. When my wife and I flew IB last week we were served at the same time, by the CC working my wife’s side.

The other reason for flying IB was that it was significantly cheaper: 62500 Avios and $126.80 per person.

mike&co

I’m on the Iberia A330 (biz) in November from Miami to Madrid. Sort of looking forward to it but would probably prefer the 350 based on the comment from Genius 1. I’ll cope tho.

mike&co

Thanks for posting this. I’ve booked E and G for that reason.

Geordie405

You’ll be fine. We had a really good flight. The crew were excellent and the food was really good. I did a review on the IB forum so take a look there if you want an idea of the menu etc. The only very minor drawback was that there’s no cava served as a PDB. The bars remained locked until we were airborne.

VSLover

but has IB stopped subbing in the dreaded LEVEL A330 on the scheduled IB A330 services because that chance alone is enough to put me off IB longhaul a330s

Prospero

Level is short of aircraft and has wet leased an all economy configured A330-300 from Wamos Air during the summer so I suppose the risk of a sub is relatively low at the moment

ekposh

Agree, we did MAD-MIA return on IB. Lounges both in MAD and MIA were excellent and the flight was too. I thought the crew were excellent as was the food and wine. You'll be just fine.

soy

BA seat is better than IB seat for solo travellers, for pairs IB might have the edge. But its all marginal.
On a overnight TATL in biz it is all about sleep, so schedule/price should decide

LupineChemist

Generally the only big swap for that at the moment is to TLV on the day flight, so....not great but not the end of the world to have a W seat on a 4 hour flight.

Note that I do believe there's still an aircraft in Level livery but IB interior. I had that with EC-MOY this winter but it has sense been repainted.

smiles in the aisles

does anyone know if BA plan to deploy long haul aircraft on the LHR-MAD route again? It seems odd that IB reinstated their wide body service but BA did not

BA or bust

Methinks it is most probably because BA is still short of aircraft and pilots to fly them.