Review of Air Europa flight Madrid London in Economy

Airline Air Europa
Flight UX1013
Class Economy
Seat 21A
Aircraft Boeing 737-800
Flight time 02:25
Take-off 14 Sep 22, 07:35
Arrival at 14 Sep 22, 09:00
UX   #66 out of 95 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 182 reviews
Lia_K
By SILVER 579
Published on 1st October 2022

Introduction/context


Hey guys! Thanks for joining me on another flight report.

After a few days in Belgium, I will be heading home to London with Air Europa with an overnight layover in Madrid. This flight report is for the second leg of that trip after flying in from Brussels on Iberojet's A320 - feel free to check out that flight report if you want. I explained in a bit more detail there about the reason behind this routing, but in short this is the cheaper than flying direct, plus I kinda wanted to fly Iberojet and Air Europa and see what they're like.

On top of the base fare, I only had to purchase my seat reservation; the base fare includes 8kg of hand luggage and an under-seat bag.


Routing


Madrid barajas airport (mad)


I spent the first few hours trying to sleep, which was very hard due to the uncomfortable seats and the automated announcements every 15 minutes or so. After sleeping for around 2 hours, I gave up and spent the rest of the night on my laptop editing photos and doing work - at least the airport has plenty of free charging ports so you shouldn't have to worry about running out of battery. 

The departures for this morning; you can find our flight (UX1013) on the right-most display.


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At around 4am the airport started flooding in with passengers for their early-morning flight. At this point I decided to walk around and take a few photos. Madrid has 4 terminals, Terminal 1-3 is in the same building and can be easily accessed from one to the other, however Terminal 4 and its satellite Terminal 4S is in another part of the airport and will require you to leave airside. 

The 'C' gates, which is part of Terminal 2 - the oldest terminal in the airport.


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The 'D' gates, also part of Terminal 2.


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The 'E' gates, which is part of the much newer and more pleasant Terminal 3.


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Between Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 you are greeted by one of the many duty-free areas around Madrid. However, most of them weren't open this early in the morning.


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After sitting in Terminal 3 for a little while, I decided that it was time to walk to my boarding gate in Terminal 1, on the other side of the building housing the 3 terminals. The walk took around 25 minutes including passing through border control. 

The 'B' gates in Terminal 1 - as usual the non-schengen area is a lot quieter as there were only a handful of flights departing in the morning, most of them going to London or the UK.


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The duty-free store in the terminal was closed, I'm not sure what time it opens but I'm very glad to have gotten my shopping done in the main Schengen area. 


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The boarding gate. We waited here for quite a while as boarding only started around 20 minutes before our scheduled departure.


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The flight


The route for our flight:


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Some quick info about our Boeing 737-800:
Registration: EC-NVJ
Age: ~15 Years

She was leased to Sunwing and TUI for the majority of her life before moving to Air Europa's fleet just a few months ago, meaning that the cabin is very new.



I was one of the first to board - so I got the chance to take a photo of the seat for the first time.


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The seat back pocket and tray table. I really like the seats - it feels really high quality and sturdy compared to the really thin seats that we're seeing these days.


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Plenty of legroom thanks to the design of the seats - honestly one of the best I've had.


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The audio controls in the armrest with the headphone jack on the bottom.


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First views out of the window, I do love this wingview!


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We departed around 20 minutes late.

Taxiing past an Aeromexico 787 in the 'Quetzalcoatl' livery - it's one of my favourite special liveries.


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Terminal 4 in the distance.


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Takeoff off 36L and views of Madrid.


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Climbing above the clouds with a lovely sunrise.


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Last views of Spain.


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Flying over the Bay of Biscay


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Given my sleepless night in the airport, I slept for the vast majority of the flight. I'm honestly amazed that I stayed awake long enough to get enough photos for this report. 

Anyway, time to have a quick look at the contents of the seat back pocket, which includes:

  - Air Europa's inflight magazine
  - A safety card
  - Air Europa's onboard menu

In the menu, there are quite a lot of drinks and sandwiches available with a limited selection of hot meals, all for a reasonable price. Overall, it's a very decent menu. 


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Over France - the clouds will get thicker and thicker as we near the UK.


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Weather in London doesn't look promising at all - looks like there's gonna be a lot of rain.


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Starting descent into London.


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First views of home - accompanied by the usual weather. ;)


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Welcome to London! A fairly bumpy approach later, we landed on time.


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London Gatwick airport (lgw)


Had to get a quick snap of our plane on my way out since I didn't get the chance to do it during boarding.


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We arrived in South Terminal. As usual with Gatwick, it is very efficient with the huge amount of automated passport gates. It took me around 20 minutes to go from the plane to the train station, obviously aided by my lack of checked baggage.

The main arrivals hall.


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Bonus : Click here display
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Verdict

Air Europa

7.5/10
Cabin9.5
Cabin crew6.5
Entertainment/wifi7.0
Meal/catering7.0

Madrid - MAD

6.3/10
Efficiency6.5
Access7.0
Services4.5
Cleanliness7.0

London - LGW

7.1/10
Efficiency8.5
Access7.0
Services7.0
Cleanliness6.0

Conclusion

A very nice flight with Air Europa, their new cabin has to be one of my favourites - especially with the nice amount of legroom. A very solid in-flight service with a nice cabin crew. Overall, a very solid product and great value for money considering that I only paid €32 including seat selection (price doesn't include the Brussels leg).

Information on the route Madrid (MAD) London (LGW)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 3 avis concernant 2 compagnies sur la ligne Madrid (MAD) → London (LGW).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Iberia Express avec 6.7/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 2 heures et 18 minutes.

  More information

4 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 612734 by
    Pilpintu TEAM 997 Comments
    Hi, Lia-K. Air Europa seems to be on the better side of low cost airlines. I seldom fly anything different from Y on LCCs, and have been considering a flight on UX from South America to Madrid for some time. It looks like it wouldn’t be a bad experience. The details that you mention, like the good legroom and a decent BOB menu make quite a difference in the LCC world, where everything tends to be uniform for the sake of cutting corners and reducing expenses.

    As for the bonus, I'm glad that they finally put that poor woman to rest. She traveled so much after her death that she could have opened a post-mortem flight-report.com account!

    Thanks for sharing!
    • Comment 612752 by
      Lia_K SILVER AUTHOR 63 Comments
      Hi Pilpintu, thanks for reading!

      Personally, I'd consider Air Europa as more a 'hybrid' carrier than a LCC, and this is reflected on their price and product. Never flown with them long-haul but I have heard a lot of positive comments about it. But yeah, I find them to be amazing value for money, especially considering that they don't have a ton of extra 'fees' that comes with a lot of LCCs (like airport check-in), and you don't have to any purchase carry-on.

      Thanks again for your comment!
  • Comment 612872 by
    NGO85 SILVER 1963 Comments
    Hi Lia, thank you for sharing this FR!

    the base fare includes 8kg of hand luggage and an under-seat bag

    This quite distinguishing from other LCCs and really does differ too much from what IB offers on basic fares.

    The audio controls in the armrest with the headphone jack on the bottom

    The cabin looks quite fresh and the color palette is good with dark and light blues. They have overhead IFE in these cabins?

    Thanks again!
    • Comment 612954 by
      Lia_K SILVER AUTHOR 63 Comments
      Hi NGO85, thanks for your comment! I do agree that UX's baggage policy is very generous (especially considering their prices), much better than the 'basic' economy fare on a lot of airlines, which is often more expensive.

      As for the cabin, I honestly can't remember if they have the overhead monitors, although I don't think so? But yeah, I do really like their cabin, especially with how comfortable the seats are.

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