Review of Iberia flight Madrid → London in Premium Eco

A Quick Message from the Authour!

First of all- Welcome to my 150th Flight Report Article! It's been a productive few years, and I'm glad you all enjoy reading, liking and commenting on these Flight Reports I make and I'm looking forward to bringing you some further great content from the rest of 2023 as well as 2024!

Iberia VIP Lounge- Terminal 4S

Here we go- let's see what this Iberia Premium Lounge at Terminal 4S is all about? How does it fare up to the British Airways South Galleries Lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 5 and Finnair's Non-Schengen Lounge at Helsinki Vantaa.

To access this Iberia Lounge you need to be flying Iberia, British Airways or any other OneWorld Partner airline which operate from the non-Schengen Terminal, so anywhere outside of Continental Europe to simplify things. At Madrid Airport this only excludes Finnair & European Iberia flights (except the UK or Ireland). Access is done by having OneWorld Status at Emerald or Sapphire (Finnair Plus Gold in my case) or flying on a Business Class or First Class ticket with a OneWorld Alliance carrier.

The quirky fact of this Lounge is that its located "slap bang" in the middle of the Madrid Terminal 4S Duty Free store!!!

The lounge entrance has a big desk for multiple check ins,  and there are maps and direction signs by the entrance to help find your way around the amenities and services as well as multiple departure boards. My first stop was the Lavazza Coffee machine!

I found a seat not far from some large windows over looking the taxiway I had travelled across earlier, so I set up to charge my GoPro and phone whilst chomping down on some snacks and a hot lunch from the buffet area. The meatballs were lush and to die for and I was happy to grab a bottle of AQUARIUS, a citrus soft drink popular in Spain and Portugal, but not easy to come by in the UK!

The Airport/Terminal views were just as amazing!

I had been up for over half the day at this point, so a much needed shower was a must and its one of my favourite luxuries when staying in a "Flagship Lounge" for a prolong period of time. The lounge offered various shower and refreshment products alongside some nice white towels. A pair of slippers ended up "somehow" coming home to England with me… I don't know how that "possibly" happened! ;)

Overall it was a good shower, I didn't use the whole miniature bottles for it, so with at least one more shower left in them- I took them home to use on a future trip! They would have only been thrown away had I left them behind…

I went back to grab a coffee and a cake at the food buffet again, alongside some water and orange juice. I took a single bag of crisps for the journey home that evening, I knew they'd come in handy!

I then moved to the other side of the Lounge for the last 30 minutes of my stay before I had to go find my Airbus A350 for the flight back to London Heathrow… I found the bar area.

I was met with this cool Terminal 4S view overlooking an Iberia Express Airbus A321neo and Plus Ultra Airbus A340-300. Whilst there I did see the arrival of an Azerbaijani Boeing 747-400F from Silkway Airways.

I enjoyed a nice drink of liquor. Wasn't sure what type of drink I drank, but I know I had the contents of the bottle in the photo with the "43" label. I think it was a whiskey, might have been a Spanish brand?

I had to eventually leave the impressive lounge, a very colourful and spacious place. I grabbed a quick photo of one of the buffet areas to give a showcase of some of the items you can get from one of the cold sections. 

My flight was due to leave from Gate 18, so I didn't have too long a walk to find my plane, I do love the layout of this part of Madrid Barajas Airport, it looks amazing even after multiple flights out of here.

Iberia IB3166 (Airbus A350-900)

Today's flight was on an Airbus A350-900XWB, registration of EC-NIG also sporting the name of "Selección Española de Baloncesto". Delivered to Iberia brand new on March 5th 2020, just as the global pandemic was about to lead to the first of the Lockdowns and the biggest crisis to hit Commercial Aviation since the 9/11 Attacks and latterly 2008 Recession.

This flight would mark my second time flying on an Iberia Airbus A350-900 since they entered service in late-2018. This is also my 5th time flying on Iberia IB3166 service, which is one of the best flights you can do in Europe!

I boarded in Group 1 alongside the Business Class flyers and with the other OneWorld Sapphire & Emerald flyers. I definitely prefer how British Airways and Finnair split the OneWorld Sapphire flyers into Group 2- on this flight at least it caused the Group 1 to be quite a busy affair.

I sat in Seat 12A, which is one of the Premium Economy Class seats, but its sold as a "Premium Seat" on this European Flight. I tried to get an upgrade to try out the A350 in Business Class, but to no avail as the business class was sold out on all 31 seats!

I find the Iberia Airbus A350 (and by extension A330) cabins a little dull… especially after coming out of the lounge which was splashed healthily with bright Iberia red, come on guys- a few of these metal Iberia Logos would look better if they were displayed in Red & Yellow!

We had a near 40 minute delay getting out of Madrid Barajas as it was quite busy. But the Iberia crew on this flight had handed out these rather "nifty" headphones for Business Class and Premium Economy passengers, I found the new Law & Order Organised Crime (Season 1) show was on their IFE System- so I tuned into episode one to pass the time after the inflight safety video and demonstration.

We pushed back and made our way over to the runway, we had a wait in the que, however the IFE made the wait go quite quickly, luckily for me at least- I left a good 3hours before my coach home to Bournemouth!

We took off about 45 minutes later than we should have, but the pilot mentioned we could easily make most the delay up as this schedule seems to have factored in the logistics of turning a wide-body aircraft around on this flight, so that is a good one on Iberia. As it was a clear day leaving Madrid Barajas, I saw a nice view as we turned around to head North for London after we took off.

After the episode of L&O Organised Crime wrapped up, I opted to check out the in-flight map, which was fun to look. The crew began inflight service. As I had been trying to bag an upgrade- I hadn't preorderd anything. But I did see a Meal Deal for 11EUR (£9.40p) which offered a Tapas Meat sandwich roll, a Spanish Mahon beer and some premium Lays Crisps.

There was a slight issue with the purchasing system, the A350 trained crew are not always on the IB3166 and they don't usually do "buy on board" as they operate the airlines long haul routes where the service is complimentary. But after 10 minutes, it was sorted out. Oh and the meal deal was very enjoyable!

We flew across the Bay of Biscay, the Brittany region of Western France before flying over the English Channel. The weather seemed really nice over this corner of Europe.

I paid the toilet a quick visit. As with long-haul flights, Premium Economy class flyers have to use the economy class facilities, luckily the Airbus A350 has some toilets about half way down the economy cabin just before the emergency exits aft of the wings.

I also grabbed a quick wing shot from the emergency exit after coming out of the toilet.

Eventually we passed the Isle of Wight and coast of Dorset, which where we began our decent into London Heathrow, we would eventually be coming in from the West of LHR, flying over the English counties Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

We flew over the iconic Windsor Castle on our arrival, being a day time flight- it provided a really nice view out of the left side of the aircraft, so I lucked out getting the A-Seat on this flight.

The favourite castle of the late Queen Elizabeth 2nd, Windsor Castle is also the final resting place of eleven British monarchs including: Henry VIII, Charles I, Elizabeth II and George VI, as well as various members of the Royal Family over the centuries. The castle was initially constructed under the reign of King William I (William the Conqueror) almost 1000 years ago!

After landing and vacating Runway 09L, we taxied past Terminal 3 and made our way over to Terminal 5C- which is a common parking spot for the Iberia Airbus A330/A350 on these flights. Fittingly we parked by an Airbus A350-1000 of British Airways.

After waiting for the majority of the passengers to leave, I bagged a few photos of the empty Airbus A350 to show a perspective of the cabins- Business, Premium Economy and Economy Class before I left the aircraft.

One day I'll have my turn flying Business Class on the Iberia Airbus A350!

I went into Terminal 5C and made my way onto the monorail to get back to the main Terminal 5A facility. I must have lucked out as I got to T5A and passport control when it wasn't too busy on the Biometric lane- so I was through that part in about 2 minutes from entering the que. Being a solo traveller can come with some perks.

With almost three hours to kill, I opted to relax in a bar called "The Globe" which is landside at check in. I opted for a pint of IPA Beer and an Old Fashioned whiskey drink.

A good way to end this flight and day trip before grabbing my coach that evening back to the Bournemouth Interchange!