Iberia airline help

:confused: We have booked our flight home from Barcelona on Iberia Airlines, Has anyone flown with them before? was your experience good or bad? Also, is the Madrid Airport easy to navigate? We have our connection to Chicago through there.

If you search here, on the air travel board at the sister site tripadvisor.com) and/or at any of the other sites where user comments on airliens are posted you will see that Iberia is very poorly regarded. There is a reason way the sell seats cheaper than most otehr airlines -- price is the only reason anyone would use them. I refuse to fly them.

You will probably land and take off from Terminal 4. It is the newest, cleanest, and best signposted of the terminals. There is a romote section of the terminmal connected by automatatic train.. you might be using that to get to your onward flight.

Paul

I have traveled with Iberia 2 times .First time San Juan Madrid and Venice-Madrid, San Juan.The second and most recent was in June San Juan-Rome(with a stop in Madrid) Rome-Madrid- JFK, Many people dont like this airline my experience was just the opposite. In these 2 trips no delays- no baggage lost.The airport in Madrid is impressive and huge but well labeled easy to navigate but allow time to do it.My problem was when we arrive in JFK thats when the nightmare began but that was with AA. Try to book a direct flight. Feel free to ask anything. Another thing confortable airplane,dinner and breakfast.

I have flown from Sevilla to JFK and Barcelona to JFK via Iberia and have no real complaints. I guess they are as good or bad as many other carriers.

Both the airport in Barcelona and Madrid are quite large and required a bit of a walk to the various terminals. There were also several check points. I do not think Iberia has direct flights from Barcelona. I would not hesitate using them any more than AA, Delta or BA. I think it is a crap shoot with many airlines. I always take out traveler's insurance and I always give myself extra time pre flight and extra time to make any connections.

Marty

I am glad to read positive reviews on this Airline....I know that negative reviews make for great typing and reading material but sometimes its refreshing to read good things also....I am still considering flying with this airline for my Med cruise out of Barcelona next May I will not count them out just because some one else had a bad time...I have read the reviews on Tripadvisor and there the reviews appear to be fairly even and the biggest problem that I have found was that they lack customer service skills....I have not found many complaints about late departures/arrivals, lost luggage canceled flights like you do with you major airlines...We hear every day how these major airlines does those things I just mentioned but we still fly them don't we :confused:.

I say keep doping your research and choose for your self, keeping in mind that when someone has a bad experience its human nature to really make it seem worst then it appears on here to get you see their pain and frustration they went through.

They are not the friendliest people, thats true. But dont get in their way and follow instructions when given and you wont have any trouble.

You will land in terminal 4, the new Iberia terminal which is gorgeous!. Your bags will be checked through to Chicago so even if you have to walk some to your new gate, you should be fine.

I have only flown Iberia inside of Spain and between Spain and Italy. Never had any problems. Yes, for the most part the staff is surly but I don't fly them to make friends. As long as they do their job I'm fine with that. So if the price is right, don't worry.

After our cruise, we flew Iberia from Barcelona to Madrid to JFK. Our greatest concern was at the Barcelona airport. The line for Iberia took FOREVER and we were really concerned that we wouldn't make our flight. The person at the counter took a very long time. We were 7th in line and it took over 50 minutes to get help. The stress level was way up at this point. Fortunately, we made it, but by the skin of our teeth.

After a short flight to Madrid, we had to change planes. It's a little scary when you don't speak the language and you're not sure where to go. We attached ourselves to some great people who did speak the language and followed them since they were taking the same flight we were. It seemed like we walked forever and then had to stand in another line to have our passports checked again.

Once we got on the plane, everything was fine. We found the flight attendants to be fine and the flight itself was uneventful. Our luggage arrived and we had no complaints.

Jackie

We will be using Iberia in October from Rome to Madrid and then JFK.

Used our American frequent flier miles. We fly American JFK to Rome.

It will be our return portion so if our luggage is lost it is not as big a problem.

We are flying AA from DCA to JFK then on to Heathrow. We then fly Iberia from there to Barcelona.....I have read so many negative things about Iberia I was starting to really worry...It is really nice to read some positive comments. We are flying in a dayearly so I figure if our luggage get sidetracked somewhere, it will (hopefully) catch up with us before the ship leaves.

I too have heard the worst comments about this airline--that I have been absolutely panicked about it. :(

My husband says things will be fine, as we have left ourselves large windows for delays and other mishaps.

We are flying American from San Francisco to JFK--then Iberia from JFK to Madrid connecting to go to Barcelona.

The same on the trip home, only we are staying on in NYC for a few days to see the sights.

I have read and learned though--thanks to CC--I am going to cross pack with my husband and pack my carry-on back with as much as possible for the trip to Spain. Always better to be prepared--just in case luggage decides to take a trip to Iceland or somewhere just as fun. ;)

Well I am glad that I am starting to see other travelers wanting to use this airline also and we are soem good feedback and not just the bashers...cause in my mind I have seen some very bad mainstream airlines with problems and I worked at PHL for 3 years so I have seen it all :eek:

Went in May. Miami to Istabul and back. Treated well. Will take them again!!

We'll be on Iberia from Paris Orly to Barcelona. I would like to know how many hours should we arrive at the airport before departure? It's a 7:50am flight, is it necessary to get a hotel near Orly the night before? We'll be staying in central Paris and don't want to move if it's not needed.

I flew with Iberia in business and my experience was not good. I've flown with many airlines and I have to say it was a huge disapointment considering the cost of the flight was 5000$. Their long haul flights are not good but in Europe they are ok.

They cut a lot of corners and the staff isn't the friendliest. They clearly don't enjoy speaking anything but Spanish. I speak 3 languages (English, French and italian) and in the end I would ask for things in Italian so they could understand and they replied in Spanish which I could understand.

Also general upkeep of the plane is not so good. The bathroom in business class was disgusting, they didn't clean it once during the flight so the bin was overflowing with paper towel, they were low on soap.

I really hope that you have a better experience and if not then note all the issues and write a letter, you may get a response ;)

Madrid is a huge airport but easy to navigate and all signs are in Spanish and English. Getting from terminal to terminal they have escalators, elevators, moving floors and subways.

I posted a question on the "Cruise Air" site regarding Iberia and received the following reply:

Someone posted a question on the sister site Tripadvisor asking about Air France vs. TAP vs. Iberia for a transatlanic trip, My response there was something like:

Chocie #1: Air France

#2 Air France

#3: TAP (although they really are not bad at all)

#4: Swim

#5: Stay home

#6: Iberia

I am not the only person who refuses to fly Iberia -- there is a reason their prices are lower than others as price is the ONLY thing they can compete on. Check out the air travel board on tripadvisor or any of the other websites offering user opinions and reviews and see what people say about Iberia.

All that said, your flight with Iberia would most likely be merely uncomforatble with bad service. Fine, you are paying a lower price. But, where Iberia really falls down is when something goes wrong. That is when you realy ned help missed flight due to cancellation or late arrival, lost luggage, etc. Iberia in these situations is terrible.

My "standard" way to get to Barcelona (ya, I go there often enough to have a standard way <grin>) is to find the cheapest flight to just about anywhere in Eurpoe with a airline I trust and then hop a Vueling Airline plane to BCN. Vuelign is a point-to-point airline headquarted at BCN. They always have great on-line and lost luggage statistics and good fares (particularly if you book early). The negative for some is that they have a fairly standard luggage allowance for intra-Europe flights and this is much less than AMerican are used to. If you travel fairly light, though, it is a great way to get to BCN.

I put in two rather random May dates into Kayak and found one stop service on Continental for $807 and on Lufthansa for $815.

Paul

Hey Paul...just when us folks were starting to feel a little bit better about Iberia you come back and cut us down at the knees again. You must have had a horrible experience to keep posting the same thing on differect topics....

2 years ago we flew from Barcelona to Madrid and onward to Chicago on Iberia. We had heard the horror stories too and we were very nervous. Our experience was okay, nothing to write home about but nothing negative either!

A person can get nervous about writing anything good about this airline because you may get some negative comments from people who haven't liked Iberia. In my experience, they provided acceptable service. Although the airport in Madrid had many security checkpoints to go through for our connection, it really wasn't that bad. Just make sure you have plenty of time.

judie43 I understand I was gonna ask the same thing :rolleyes: Keep the positive replies coming

We flew IB Business Class Barcelona-Madrid-Miami on AAdvantage miles in early May after the Brilliance TA. Like most airlines today the ground and flight service was OK. With a few exceptions like Singapore, for the most part the days of raving about air travel are long gone. There were two parties ahead of us, one of which had no idea what they were doing (couldn't find passports, etc) and it took about a half hour to get checked in. The walk from checkin to the gate at Barcelona seem to be forever. We connected at IB's new terminal in Madrid and, naturally the departure gate was as far from the arrival gate as humanly possible. And there are more security checkpoints in the transfer level of the terminal than most airports have all together :-)

Iberia, just one step away form goats and chickens in the back of the plane. fly lufthansa, american, united, british, swiss, KLM, virgin, aer lingus, etc.

Iberia, just one step away form goats and chickens in the back of the plane. fly lufthansa, american, united, british, swiss, KLM, virgin, aer lingus, etc.

That's okay...we will get seats in the front of the plane!!

I have to say this is not making me fell comfortable about flying on this airline. Guess, I'll have to think positive our my flight.

Elaine

Elaine,I am blocking the negatives from my brain...I have to. We have a 2 hour flight from LHR to BCN....I am not so worried about comfort or the pleasantness of flight attendants as I am about lost luggage. We are flying in the day before so if they lose it I have already checked for flights after ours and there are enough to assure me it will catch up to us.

As far as bad experiences on flights, there are not too many that I have taken that didnt have some kind of negative,from Jet Blue to Aer Lingus.

Relax and look forward to your trip,that is what I am doing

Would never fly them again.

I wrote a long post of the details before but to summarize it

1) Missed all connection flights both going and coming back to US. In Madrid -- waited 3 hours for the next available flight.

2) They gave our seats which were reserved a year in advance to young Spanish couple. Husband is in wheelchair and they put him in a middle seat that was so bad we had to lift him over the seat. Supervisor told us nothing they could do.

3) Definitely noted treatment of Americans was different than other.