I believe I watched the soon-to-be-classic National Treasure, starring Nicholas Cage, for the first of many in-flight times, on a BA A320 IST-LHR last year.

Yes, Euro BA 767s have main screen IFE, too.

This was in Y, not J. The J seats did look nice-ish. What is with that color though? ;-)

To your points, my last international AA flight on a 767 did not have any IFE in coach aside from a main screen - so comparable in that regard vs. say VS where you get seatback IFE in coach. and to #3, I've had plenty of unfriendly AA FA's in the back of the bus!

But you are correct that AA is brilliant at holding seats

Not sure what about my post stimulated such a (heated ?) response from you Traveloguy, espec. as you will see that most of the posts in the weeks between the OP and your post (and since !), many from regular IB flyers, concur with my experiences and observations.

The answer to your question is that it was (LHR-) MAD-TLV (and back) which is officially 5h 15m (and on this day was even longer), and is over 7 hours on some flights/days (I found out since) due to a stop-off in Barca on the way/way back.

Secondly, I'm not sure why you feel the need tell me "...that the rest of the world is not like Australia and Asia" when I live in London (UK), have done so (apart from a year or two) for 30 years, fly mostly shorhaul in Europe (30-40 sectors a year minimum these days - about 60% in Y, 40% in J) - in addition to my relatively frequent travel to the Middle-East, the US, and Asia and Oz - and am making my comments/comparisons in regards these flight experiences. (Did you assume from all my posts on QF Forum etc that I am Oz/Asia based ?)

And you 'break it' to me ( ) that "any A320 services on any OW carrier in Europe..." on a flight of that length would not have IFE etc, but if you have a good look at my post you will see that that is exactly the point - why are they flying such an aircraft on such a route ? No other OW carrier would. And why, on top of this, do IB choose (as their management have) not to use video equipment that they actually have on board ? Even the LCCs/charter carriers on similar length route from London for e.g. (the likes of Monarch etc) provide IFE on the big screen.

On the equiv. routes (LON-TLV, LON-CAI, etc) BA fly on 'long haul aircraft' with a 3 class service, with full service in Y with personal screen IFE, NCW seats in J, and the full F service (yes, including the 'pyjamas' if you ask for them ! ). And see Gardyloo's post re. your other BA observation.

Therefore, in answer to the real question at hand here, on 5h+ direct international flights in my experience EVERY SINGLE other OW carrier apart from IB provides IFE etc ! (Not just QF and CX, but on such medium haul also BA, AA, etc, etc). And one of the reasons is that no other OW carrier (not even I believe [from what I have read on FT]) the [soon to be departing] LCC that is Scare Lingus) would consider treating (in usual circumstances) a 5h+ international flight as short-haul, and impose such a low level of experience/comfort on its paying pax.

And ALL other OW carriers certainly have real J on flights of such length - not one that has the same identical seats etc as in Y, just with a different seat head-cover, and a very minimal addition to the Y meal offering.

These infact are the points we need to 'keep reminding' ourselves of .

I also find it odd that you can't see these points when, again as I posted, the IB CSM/D onboard the flight itself expressed her own annoyance at the very same issues (and had tried herself, without success of course, to get management to change policy) !

And, btw, whether you intended to or not (and I would like to assume having read many of your posts on FT before that you didn't), your opening comments about my experience ("Where were you flying that would require a 5+ hour flight on an A320? They can't really fly that much further than that in the first place?") read as if/implied that you don't believe that they actually took place. Your shock/amazement at the fact that IB would fly such a lengthy route on such an aircraft and with so little services should instead be reserved for/directed at IB itself.

It is my opinion (and of other here, as previous posts testify [like wandering_fred's - who I see was forced by IB to do just such a stop-off in Barca on way to the Middle-East ]) that it is a disgrace that in 2006 an OW carrier operate such a flight/service. (And please remember that IB policy now is to run such a service on ALL their routes of such/similar length, not just to TLV). And this is by any objective standard, not just that of Asian carriers. I have little doubt that if you had actually been on such a flight - like myself, wandering_fred, etc - you would agree 100%.

Apologies. I certainly had no intention of making my post seem to heated! Must be the phase of the moon!

I do feel however that it seems many people go on an IB flight expecting things will go wrong and often things do go wrong largely because people go in with that negative attitude - i.e. it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Ouch! I would never have expected an A320 operating on that route.

I should mention that BA do have a route that is slightly longer and that is the LGW-SSH service which is also on a A320 and unfortunately also offers the same level of IFE (i.e. nothing). LGW-RAK is also pretty similar.

Actually my comment was not meant to be taken in such light but apologies again - it was certainly not my intention to cause offence!

I do however feel that regional European flights (& to North Africa) possibly has the worst service in the world. In general carriers provide little or no IFE even on medium haul to long haul Euro flights and the seating tends to be tight. This applies to both BA, IB as well as other European carriers - just ask Smirnoff and his feelings on BA's offerings to Moscow - there is a whole thread devoted to the topic!


That's the thing. I have been on many 3-4 hour flights on BA and I have yet to see any IFE beyond the safety demos.

The routes you quote are premium routes for BA and don't reflect the whole BA Euro flight network. There is quite a large Jewish population here in London and therefore lots of business traffic and the same for CAI. High numbers necessitate the use of a larger aircraft thus all the facilities as all 777s etc have NCW etc. Remember that even on the LHR-TLV route, the 767 service which operates one of the two dailies was only recently 'dusked' a few months back so if you got that old 767 served flight and you were in Club, you would end up in a 'CE punishment seat'!

I think my statements above show that there are several other medium haul routes with a similar service on BA.

I agree that the above is not a good situation. IB (and BA) really should be providing better services on flights of 3.5+ hours, especially for those sitting in premium cabins considering the fares they charge on these routes. My only point in my post is that I feel that IB often takes stick for its services, but they are not the only guilty carrier. I have only flown on LHR-HEL route or Asian routes with AY so I really cannot comment on what equiptment they ply on their medium haul routes, but on the 3 hour shuttle to LHR they certainly have no IFE - just the usual map. Fortunately they do offer great in-flight service in terms of booze and food so it generally makes up for the lack of IFE.

All I am going to say is thank goodness for the invention of the Ipod! Generally on these sorts of services I take my laptop with a decent movie or TV show and watch that. Unfortunately I suspect that will be the way to go in the future too as none of the competition offer terribly much in Europe. Until that changes I cannot see IB nor BA offering much more than they currently do.

Again, apologies if you felt my post was seen as a personal attack as it certainly was not intended to be!

Apologies of course accepted . As I said, I was sure that you had not meant to be 'tetchy', the post just happened to read that way !
Yep. Was not fun.
On this point we are in agreement - thank god for the iPod indeed ! QF have IFE on 1-2h flights, and indeed so do the likes of SAA, plus as you say many Asian carriers. But on our case in point a 2-3h flight is quite a different matter from a 5-6h one, espec. when your rivals (and OW partners) provide personal screen IFE on their equiv. flights.

And on the other point even on the 3 hour BA Euro services the J cabin is clearly differentiated from Y, and is a vast improvement from IBs equiv. J - meal service I generally think is great (love the BA / Royal Doulton tea cups !), and as long as you are sitting on the left of the cabin ( ) or in the front row you have a lot more space etc. A far cry from IB.

As for your observations re. the LON-TLV route, the 'large' (less than 0.005% of the British population !) Jewish population factor is of course a part of it, but only a small-ish part. Many such paxs. are in Y (with many other tourists on the route), yet BA have the 3 cabins due to brisk business travel etc (and not just from the UK). I think the bigger issue may be the competition factor - BA need to provide a proper service as they are up against ElAl etc etc on the route. IB have a relative monopoly... and prob. believe that by having such a basic service they can charge cheap prices and attract budget pax. to buy connecting flights with them from other Europe hubs as a consequence.

And its not like IB are not running a J service on the route - they are, its just an insult for one. There must be more than a little premium class business to and from the Middle-East from Spain etc... and maybe they would attract more of it if they actually provided a real J service.

As for the times BA flew 767s on the TLV route, this is why I wrote about 'usual circumstances' ! When there is war/Intifada (but not a bad enough one for them to temp. drop the route altogether [i.e. Gulf War I]) the demand drops significantly and they temp. stick on awful (IB style ! ) aircraft on the route. My point is that IB do it all the time !

Finally...... maybe you had read my post assuming I was just such a person ?!? Seriously, its a fair enquiry, but I can assure you this was not the case with me - I arrived to fly with them in a positive frame of mind as they always upgrade me, and then had this terrible experience. It was a disgrace... and I'm now voting with my feet. Its bye bye IB for me.

Well, only on "new aircraft since May 2005", which, if I read the BMed website correctly is 2 out of 8.

I don't see anything stating 2 out of 8 although I am not aware all the aircraft having been upgraded yet.

If you are in Club even on a non-upgraded plane you will still get the decent seat though so it is still pretty good.

Indeed - the old BA Club World seat. And I see that they will very shortly start two new routes to West Africa (Freetown and Dakar) which open up the continent a little bit more for RTW people.

IB has no 32" pitch in economy...at least nowadays after fleet reconvertion and new"re-reconvertion" to high density planes according to informationpublished on IB's corpaorate web director plan: http://grupo.iberia.es/content/Grupo...bre%202005.pdf
pages 52,53....says pitch28" to 30" in economy class

I will suffer IB's Y "canned" econnomy product to moscow next month..I will try to get an UPG for this flight...

A320 does MAD - DME In essence 5 hours

Ouch. That's worse than even QF manage to stuff them down the back!

Whilst I don't understand much Spanish, looking at the presentation it looks as though this is coming in between 2006 and 2008 so the future certainly does not look bright for those of us sitting down the back. Mind you, even BA is reducing their pitch as when their new seating comes in it will also be a bit tighter.

What's going on in Europe?

I had IFE on BA ATH-LHR in August. It was a few comedy shows and I think some news. IB offers nothing on ATH-MAD.