atmorris

Sorry should have said in J

It's an IB operated flight with a BA Codeshare

BA6501

Isn't it Iberia Express operated?

You'll get a choice of hot meal, drinks, etc.

atmorris

It was until last week IB now its Iberia Express for Iberia.

flaii

I'm usually a Star Alliance flyer, but thanks to Chase Ultimate Rewards points, I've been flying Iberia a bunch recently (transferring via British Airways). There was only business class available on a recent itinerary, so was glad to try out business on Iberia for the first time!

NCE-MAD operated by Iberia Express
A320
6:20pm departure

First, the flight attendant came around with glasses of orange juice for everyone. I think if you wanted something else they would have brought it to you.

Then they came around asking if we wanted to have dinner, and what beverage we wanted to accompany dinner. There wasn't a choice of meals, but the duck leg was excellent! It was served with zucchini and eggplant, and a tomato, a cucumber and feta salad, and a cake filled with chocolate. Choice of wheat or white rolls, with butter and little bottle of organic olive oil and vinegar.

This was followed by an offer of coffee or tea, and finally squares of milk and dark chocolate offered on a tray.

Service was really excellent, with the crew always smiling and very polite.

MAD-VLC operated by Air Nostrum
CRJ1000
10:55pm departure

This flight DID offer a choice of snack to my surprise, but I thought it was funny that there was only one of each option boarded - either meat sandwich (I assume) or cheese sandwich. I assume the other one was some kind of chorizo or lomo, because the only other passenger in business was presented with both options on a tray, and he selected that one. Then the flight attendant turned to me, showed me the cheese sandwich, and said "This is all we have left."

I was perfectly fine with the cheese sandwich (bread was dry, so mainly ate just the bottom part with the one slice of cheese), but kind of wondered why bother with even having a choice on such a short flight with so few passengers, especially since the longer flight with hot meal service didn't have an option?

All in all a nice first experience with Iberia intra-Europe business class!

DELLAS

I have had that meal on IBX pretty decent. Glad you had a good experience I always have good flights with them. ^ My travel is split between OW/STAR

jackr27

Air Nostrum OPO - MAD

This was a 55 minute flight and was probably my most enjoyable short-haul J in a very long time.

EXCELLENT crew, really friendly and didn't stop the entire flight.

Served pasta (there was another choice, but I forget), which came with warm bread, a salad, cheese and then a chocolate cake dessert. All of a great quality (apologise for bad picture).

As well as an initial glass of orange, and wine with dinner, the crew even managed to get out coffee for the whole cabin (albeit 10 seconds before the seatbelt sign went on)!

Great flight - BA could learn some lessons.

DELLAS

BUSINESS CLASS LHR-MAD (A340)


Very nice meal. Great crew. We were delayed nearly 3 hours due to the A340 going tech on the MAD-LHR sector so they had to swap it for another one. At least they did not send down a A321 instead

Have to say the meal was one of the best I have had on IB/I2 this year. ^



.

pvgman

I Flew PVG-MAD 2 weeks ago in J, a 14h+ flight,

While the food was ok, the gathering was the same than for a 7h MAD-JFK, a lot of passenger were complaining, the handful of mini sandwiches mid-flight didn't cut it.

noturbulence

Had the very same experience on a recent MAD-NRT in C and this is also an issue for the long distance LatAm flights to MVD and SCL, especially as, while dinner is usually very decent, the breakfast in contrast is rather a disgrace (at least for C compared to e.g. BA or QR).

Have learned from it and now made it a habit of stopping by the Alcampo at Pio XII and/or the Granier at Colomba on the way to the airport to stock up on a few extra goodies. And also now usually take a few of the sandwich quarters in a ziplock bag from the lounge on board for some extra catering.

Really should't be that way in C but here you go

LupineChemist

I'm wondering if this is a cultural thing as Spanish people tend to eat very light breakfasts.

P.S. Depending on where you're coming from, there's plenty more convenient supermarkets. Including large ones in every Corte Inglés. There's Simply on C/ Alcalá near Goya and a decent sized Carrefour on C/ Conde del Peñalver also near Goya.

But yeah, plenty of Mercadona/Simply/Lidl/Día/Carrefour all over the city.

miamiflyer8

It is indeed that Spaniards tend to eat light breakfasts with just Cola Cao (chocolate milk) and a tiny muffin or croissant.

IAN-UK

All this lovely food on short-haul business class

I'm filled with envy. A beef stew - and not a very nice one - was the only available non-pasta main between Bogota and Madrid. Only half a dozen of us in business, but the service was still slow and mechanical. Perhaps the cabin crew work better when they're over-stretched ...

Assimilated Cajun

I had pre-ordered a vegetarian meal for our IB flight, ORD-MAD in J. The online menu displays three options -- Asian Vegetarian, Vegetarian With Milk Products, and Vegetarian Without Milk Products -- and I chose "with milk products" because I'm not a vegan, detest margarine, and was hoping for something Spanish and cheese-intensive. But despite numerous attempts to choose this option, including one by an Iberia customer service agent, my reservation kept showing "without milk products". Because of this and after reading negative reports on IB vegetarian meals in this thread, I switched to Asian vegetarian which is what I usually order on other airlines. These are typically Indian meals, traditionally vegetarian (milk, cheese, butter, but no eggs) and usually pretty tasty.

On the flight when they passed out the menus, I saw that one of the options was a vegetable lasagna and that the standard menu also included an appealing salad and an appetizer consisting of Spanish cheeses. So I told the flight attendant that if they had an extra lasagna I'd prefer that to my Asian vegetarian meal. When she came to serve the salad, she explained that they did have an extra lasagna entree but "we have nothing else". So she served my Asian-veg meal with the lasagna substituted for the pre-ordered entree. This turned out to be the worst of all possible worlds. The salad from the vegetarian meal was iceberg lettuce, cucumber slices, and a couple of other uninteresting crudites with a plastic container of balsamic vinaigrette, the same kind American Airlines serves on domestic flights. The appetizer was a smaller salad, not much different than the first, and the dessert was a few slices of airline fruit. Oh, and I got margarine instead of butter. Among other disappointments, there was nothing the least bit Asian about any of these dishes. And the lasagna from the standard menu wasn't much better -- way too cheesy and quite gooey, more like what you'd get in an all-night diner in the midwestern US than in Spain or Italy.

Fortunately, my wife shared her appetizer and salad with me. Both were pretty tasty: the cheeses were Manchega and something like brie. And I got the same bread as non-veg passengers, day-old rolls about which the flight attendant's description -- "we have brown and white" -- turned out to be about all there was to say. My wife said that her fish entree, advertised as grilled, seemed to have been boiled.

Another reason I usually order Asian vegetarian meals on all-night flights is that the breakfast usually consists of some Indian bread with something curried to dip the bread in. But on this flight my breakfast was another plate of airline fruit. The flight attendant did not ask if I would prefer the oatmeal that was one of the options from the standard menu, and I didn't ask because by then I was mostly thinking about getting off the plane.

The good news is that I'm now in Spain, where there's lots of wonderful bread and cheese and wine as well as "fab vegetables", pastries, and desserts.

I often choose to fly the national airline of the country I'll be visiting, mostly in the hope that being on the plane will feel like being already there. In the unlikely event I ever fly Iberia again, I guess I'll order from the standard menu and just eat the appetizers.

Prospero

IB3878 MAD-SCQ, May 2017

A light snack was served on board this short Iberia Express flight.

Bohemiana

We flew business class April 26 LAX-MAD. The food was horrible. I take that back, the starter salad was fine but nothing special. I had the cod--the fish was actually good but the tomato sauce on top was from a can and the vegetables were tasteless. Husband had the mushroom risotto WITH MANGO sauce...yes, risotto with a mango smoothie poured on top! Horrible. Dessert was ice cream that had very little taste, if that's even possible. Breakfast was nothing special--yogurt and something. We flew coach return and the food was no better but no worse.