Just thought I'd share my latest Jekyll and Hyde experience on IB. Am posting it here as interested in the OW aspects of it all : a) whether the status recognition thing is just my luck or a norm, and b) whether others agree with me that the onboard realities are simply unnacceptable for a member of OW. (I have read many bad things on FT about IB but had no idea they now provide such a threadbare service on all their medium-haul flights).

First the good news -

Upgrades : Once again, as a QF Platinum, I was upgraded 2 out of the 4 legs of the itinerary. I say 'once again' as EACH AND EVERY TIME I have flown an itinerary on IB with a connection (as I have done on one occasion in each of the last 4 years) they have upgraded me on the shorter flight on both the outbound and the inbound. 100% record. These have always been on cheapest-available Y tickets, and on the first occasion I was not even Plat. but QF Gold (OW Sapphire) !

Is this an unpublished benefit of QF status when flying on IB ?!? ^

And what was so amazing was that this time the flight in question on the return was on BA metal and yet I was still upped at the gate. (Have flown UK-Europe on BA down the back many many many times in the last few years and never once been Op-Upped, so must have been the IB factor at work).

Lounges - Stunning new facility in Madrid T4 (Velazquez one) - great, great lounge. Small but nice and smart facility at LHR too. Barcelona one not bad (bit old etc).

But then the bad news...

Onboard

Service

Very poor : OK on the J leg, though not good enough, and very poor on the two (5 hour) Y legs (final leg was on BA metal as stated above). A number of staff were downright rude infact, most very sombre/going through the motions.

Not so much as a 'hello' when boarding the plane on any of the flights (and IB don't check boarding cards on one-aisle aircraft I was told), and certainly no 'status hello' onboard (not that I expect one except on QF and CX).

Food

OK to poor. Very poor on the J leg (by shorthaul J standards) too. At least is free on the medium-haul Y, though you have to pay for it on the short-haul flights.

Entertainment - NONE !

This for me was the main issue, and to my mind is quite unacceptable - found myself on two 5 hour flights that, as standard IB policy, provide no entertainment options whatsoever. No films, no audio channels, nothing. Thank god I had my iPod.

Purser/CSD told me when I enquired that this was standard policy as of a few months ago for all IB medium-haul 2 cabin flights, even though the aircraft (battered old A320s) had all the available equipment. She confirmed that both pax and staff had complained, and that it was very frustrating for her as all it would involve would be sticking a video in the machine (that she showed me the aircraft indeed had !), dropping the screens and handing out headphones, but that IB management had decided to provide no onboard entertainment whatsoever on such flights.

My personal view is that it is unnacceptable in 2006 for an airline that is a member of one of the major networks, that claims to be a full service carrier - and espec. as it will be carrying pax on board on codeshares from other alliance carriers who provide such facilities - to operate 5-6-7 hour flights with no onboard entertainment service whatsoever. They have in this regard fallen behind even many LCCs/charter operators/etc.

It is even more unnaceptable when the aircraft have the facilities, but IB on high have decided not to use them for some unknown reason.

Not even pax. in J had entertainment options (no personal DVDs etc), which is even more shocking - how dare IB sell such seats for thousands of �/Euro when you get the same seat as in Y, no film or music, and an ever-so-slightly better meal. I would be livid if I/my firm had paid for big buck to be in that cabin expecting a real J service. (BA on equiv. flight/route offer NCW seats and an F cabin).

Very surprised OW / codeshare partners have not taken issue with any of this. Really does de-value the alliance.


So in summary it was a very odd set of experiences - great status recognition, stunning state-of-the-art lounge experience in Madrid, but sub-standard and out-of-date service and facilities onboard.

As I say, Jekyll and Hyde.... one side very much what an OW carrier should be doing, the other totally unnacceptable to my mind for an OW member. Guess OW gonna do nothing about it, but wondering whether IB's ever increasing moves to 'no-frills' service (i.e. to a 'no-service' service !) points to a near-future IB departure from OW a la Scare Lingus.

No idea, but as AA elite(s) I/we have been op-upped by IB so many times in the recent past, short and long haul, that I just don't know what to think, except be grateful, and totally blind/deaf at whatever other shortcomings they have, faults, by the way, that IMO and IME are neither so huge nor so frequent as reported here in FT.

Fair enough !

... though I wish I could agree on this point. Sadly though the OpUp to the poor J service on this particular flight simply could not mask the nastiness of the 5h flight after it. And even the OpUp to the excellent BA J could not make up for nasty 5h IB flight just before it.

In fact IB did not do themselves any favours by upping me on the BA leg... just reminded me of the vast difference between the 2 carriers !

Again fair enough, you have obviously taken many many more IB flights than me, and so I take your word for it. But my experience this week sadly only concurs with the negative opinions expressed by others on FT before.

I'll ceratinly never be flying IB on such a (medium-haul) route ever again, in Y or J.

Allow me to relate a little OT experience: quite a few years ago a large number of people I used to work with, from all over the world, got together for a special dinner. We went to a Spanish restaurant in Sydney (not my idea). They served us Gazpacho. Only *one* of us finished it, and I thought it was fantastic. Iberia can, at times, be like Gazpacho: fine to a few, nasty to many.

Uhmm... gazpacho in Sydney.
Garlic is the key to gazpacho anywhere in the world.

Ahem...on the point of in flight entertainment I can point you to another member of OW that fails miserably in this area and that lovely partner is AA. As for catering...well I guess they are probably on par with IB from what you describe (or do worse since nothing is free on domestic flights, some of which are 9 hours long ) and IMHO sounds like have inferior lounges. Service wise they probably do much better though.

Same on my 3 J flights last month. The common explanation is that it's "Spanish culture" to not give a "fake" smile or greeting. The crew couldn't have cared less that I was boarding the plane. In one case J was not allowed to board first. They also don't mind Y passengers coming into the J cabin slamming lockers, using the WC, and so on, all in plain view of the FA. The ground crew was worse, extremely rude. Once at check-in, the agent moved my 2 pre-selected business seats into 2 separate rows for no reason. I asked her to fix it and she did along with giving me a dirty look. Sorry to inconvenience you IBERIA!
I like airline food, and am always up for trying new foods. Regardless IB had the worst ever in either J or Y. Did not even touch one of my meals which the FA could not identify for me in Spanish or English.

I don't care about the lack of videos you mentioned, but IB shouldn't be calling this business class. It's so not. Aside from my minor complaints, the seat and legroom is identical to Y. To me there has to be at least some small differentiation there to be J.

On the plus side, I had no luggage problems, the MAD lounge is nice, and everyone spoke English.

Altaflyer, You might want to reserve those comments since you imply you haven't flown IB. I'd much rather pay for sub-par food on AA than get free inedible "food" from IB in J. And yes the MAD lounge is nice, but it's also in a shiny new terminal which happens to be their hub. The LHR lounge for IB is not so great for example. I missed the BCN lounge as I was in a hurry, but maybe someone can comment.

You are correct, I have not YET flown IB but I am up for a challenge...in December I have flown AA and have sampled their purchased inedible crap so I guess I'd assume at worse it would be a wash Also, I reiterate that service on AA would not be anything like the hostile reception that appears to be the norm on IB. Thank God half my flying is on the IB regional partner which I understand is far superior to mainline IB!

I hope you have a better experience and let us know how it goes. (And how you liked Air Nostrum- I'm guessing)

Thanks all for the comments guys.

rrgg you seem to have experienced the same as me, and of course agree about the fact that their J just isn't J. Its a disgrace in my opinion.

And this is the difference between IB and AA Altaflyer - I agree that AA are pretty poor down the back, but their shorthaul premium cabin is a real one, and they do provide entertainment options etc on longer domestic flights. AA short/mediumhaul Y may be only OK-to-poor, but IB are just poor, poor, poor on short/mediumhaul in Y and J.

And the less said about gazpatcho in Sydney the better Viajero !

My experiences with Iberia consist of them losing my bag for 11 days whilst going round europe in 2003 - my bag went to more cities than I did... but that was all made good with an upgrade to J on GIG-MAD coming back from my South American trip (on an award ticket no less) for me and my partner . And I am a lowly silver/ruby with QF

Just to add my 2 cents after a JFK-MAD-NCE RT recently:

Iberia longhaul (i.e. JFK-MAD): Very "adequate". A lot like AA in fact if you are on a 767 except here you are on an A340. FA's are tolerable though not friendly. Food is a notch above AA IMHO, though good luck getting descriptions from FA's beyond "Pasta or Beef". You do get free wine with dinner. IFE is almost non-existant. For an 8 hours flight IFE was one movie shown on a main screen viewable from a handful of seats.

We also experience what others have mentioned here with regard to them giving away confirmed assigned seats for no reason. When we checked in at NCE for our NCE-MAD-JFK return yesterday we were told we had to pickup our BPs in MAD. We were told our window seats (it's a 2-4-2) were confirmed. At MAD, we go to Customer Service where we see our BPs print out as STANDBY!! Then they go away clicking and clacking and after 5 minutes ask what is happening and he just says we'll be more than happy and to be patient. OK. I thought maybe we were getting OpUped to J as Sapphire. Nope.... Finally they print out two seats together in the middle section and they tell us we're lucky they got us those becuase they are oversold. Perhaps we were under the circumstances - circumstances in which they GAVE AWAY our assigned seats despite our checking in at NCE at 12 and in MAD at 2 for a 5pm flight to JFK!


Now the regional service MAD-NCE was wonderful. on a < 2 hour flight a meal was served, service was extremely friendly, the seats comfy, etc. I enquired of a FA why the service was so much nicer than on IB mainline and she smiled and explained that Air Nostrum (which does regional service for IB) operates as ALL BUSINESS CLASS. And it shows (note it's intra-Europe Biz, so standard coach sized seats). Very enjoyable experiences both ways on Air Nostrum.

Lounge in MAD: Very very nice.

Summary: They are OK. Fine. nothing special, not the worst ever. As AA Plat it's nice to have lounge access and priority checkin - but I'd not go out of my way to fly them again. And they really need to learn how to hold confirmed reserved seats - if a passenger has already checked in for the 1st of a two leg flight and it's on time, there's just no reason to give away assigned seats on the connecting flight.

Hmm... Daveland-- I'd consider IB transatlantic J for the new seats, but I don't see how your experience is "a lot like AA" since you listed (1) no IFE; 1 movie not viewable by all, (2) losing assigned seats for no reason (IB also did this to me twice even though my seats were not reassigned to anyone else), (3) FA's are not friendly (understandment of the year). YMMV

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?

Sorry to break it to you, but I can't think of any A320 services on any OW carrier in Europe (BA, AY or IB) where they provide any IFE even in J (BMED is the big exception here) so not quite sure what you are comparing them with.

What you need to keep reminding yourself is that the rest of the world is not like Australia and Asia where they provide IFE services if even main screen services on regional routes.

I believe BA's regional 767s have IFE although dispite flying them even on some longer journeys (3+ hours), I have yet to experience it.

At least late last year MAD-BCN-CAI was on a 320.........
Moderately friendly FAs to BCN (in J)
Ground staff in CAI useless

Happy (or unhappy as the case may be) wandering

Fred