Review of Iberia Express flight Lyon → Madrid in Economy

Hello and welcome to my 2017 summer flight series…and to this replacement flight (finally) going to Madrid, Spain!

Teaser:

Here is my itinerary to Spain and Canada:

1. U24421 from Lyon to Madrid on the 07/07/2017
1bis. IB3735 from Lyon to Madrid on the 10/07/2017 (you are here)
2. IB3230 from Madrid to Rome on the 14/07/2017
3. AC891 from Rome to Toronto on the 14/07/2017
4. AC125 from Toronto to Vancouver on the 14/07/2017
5. AC840 from Vancouver to Frankfurt on the 06/08/2017
6. LH234 from Frankfurt to Rome on the 07/08/2017
7. IB3233 from Rome to Madrid on the 07/08/2017ç

Pre-flight:

If you have read my last report (http://flight-report.com/en/report/25528/EasyJet-U24421-Lyon-LYS-Lyon-LYS), you know what happened 3 days before this flight… If you haven´t, I´ll explain to you: I was travelling with my sister to MAD on Easyjet flight 4421 from LYS on Friday, July 7th. Flight was cancelled because of weather and pax issues, and next seats available were a week after…so I bought the 2 last seats on Monday Iberia Express flight with Avios, which made me save 300€ and asked Easyjet for a refund & a compensation…I haven´t received any asnwer…

Iberia Express Flight 3735:

After a week-end at home, on Monday´s early morning, I made my way to the airport by car and arrived 2 hours before scheduled departure.

Weather was quite nice but a bit cloudy:

Friday´s Terminal 1 B:

Our way to Terminal 2:

And to the parking lot, quite convenient:

Welcome to T.2, with today´s FIDS:

We went upstairs to the departures hall, which was crowded:

Air France check-in counters (yes, AF B789 is coming everyday to LYS, we will see it later) and IB ones:

As we hadn´t luggage to check-in, it was time to pass through security, which we cleared quickly

And we were airside at Q Gates, mainly AF domestic flights:

After having a quick visit of this part of the terminal, we went through customs in barely 5 minutes to get to gate P17. The concourse is not really plane spotting friendly ;-(

Toilets (which weren´t very clean) and Lounge for passengers on non-Schengen flights:

And a few boarding gates (amongst all, our´s), with an EW A319 and a KLM E75 in the foreground and… 2 rare planes here in LYS!! (a QR A320 operating for BA and a turkish charter airline B738 yo Antalya).

Then, it was time to board our plane, arrived 10 minutes before scheduled arrival (that I didn´t see arriving because I was too focused on AF B789 arriving just behind it, as you can barely see on this airport radar screen next to the boarding gates):

Boarding took quite a bit but it was okay as the glass gateway had A/C:

Today´s ride is this 4 year-old sharklets former IB plane

First outside look at our plane EC-LYM:

And we were onboard and on our way to seats 5A and 5B!

Woah! There is in-flight entertainment, WIFI and USB outlets available, not common on a short LC flight! Unfortunately, USB outlets weren´t working…

Once seated, I looked around my seat

Pitch is quite good and the seat is more confortable than U2 ones:

What´s in the seat pocket in front of you? :-)

What´s outside??

In special, I was looking for this bird, a brand new AF Dreamliner that links CDG and LYS once a day until October:

We pushed back on-time just on-time and started taxiing to runway 18R heading South (a 4 KM Runway)

And lined-up for take-off 10 minutes ahead the scheduled departure:

We were finally airborne (3 days later than planned)!!

We flew over Vienne, Saint-Etienne, Zaragoza and the Alps:

I had a quick look to the in-flight entertainment which was good for a 2 hour flight (good content of movies, tv shows, music, travel guides, flight info & map…)

As we reached an altitude of 37.000 feet, captain told the pax that we would be arriving (North) to MAD 10 minutes behind schedule, great! Approaching MAD:

And there we were, welcomed by pleanty of IB planes!!

Then, we taxied to Schengen Terminal 4…but finally parked in a remote stand, no problem!

We soon de-boarded the plane by the front door and took the bus parked in front of the plane

The ride to the concourse was nice… for aviation lovers/geeks!! ;-)

After this 5 minute ride, we arrived to the terminal and headed to the exit as we hadn´t checked-in luggage

We were off to the car parking 20 minutes after having landaed, good job Iberia (Express)!