#48 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
345 reviews
Hello and welcome to the second instalment in another series of oneworld transatlantic Business class flight reviews. These flights took place over the 2022-2023 Christmas Holidays–as usual, I'm very behind in posting!
For these outbound flights, I was able to work out a longer layover in London as my son really wanted to see London at Christmastime–it really is magical around the Holidays. It also worked out for the AvGeek in me, because one of the later flights we could take was operated by a widebody! Not to mention that the long-haul full-flat Business class seats would be welcome after a long transatlantic flight and a few hours of touring in London.
Flight reviews in this series:
We caught the Heathrow Express back to the airport from Paddington Station about 2.5h before our flight was due to depart.
It was a quick 15 minute ride to the Heathrow Terminal 2&3 station. Though we had arrived from San Diego at Terminal earlier in the day, our Iberia flight was operating from Terminal 3. This worked out well with out short excursion into the city as it's quicker to T2/3 than T5.
T3 was looking festive with Christmas decorations.
Although Iberia, and several other oneworld carriers, had operated at BA's T5 since the beginning of the pandemic, with the travel recovery in full swing and BA expanding once again, all other carriers operating at T5 moved back to T3 in 2022.
Going through security at T3 was actually much more pleasant than if we had gone through transit security at T5, as there haven't been any Fast Track lanes for transit passengers at T5 since 2020 and it's always slow going.
The flight information screens in the terminal show locations of the many lounges in addition to date and departure time information.
It was a nice change to be flying out of T3. There is a wealth of lounges to choose from if you're flying a oneworld premium cabin or have Sapphire or Emerald status: American Airlines Admirals Club and International First class lounge, British Airways Galleries lounge, British Airways First lounge, Cathay Pacific Lounge, and Qantas Lounge.
Even though we had access to First class lounges with our oneworld Emerald status, we headed to the Qantas Lounge, which is one of my favourite oneworld lounges at Heathrow.
The welcome is always warm and it's a beautiful and expansive space on two levels.
We headed to the upper level, which has much more seating and most-importantly when travelling with children, a quiet separate children's playroom.
The children's room is great when flying with small children and it was nice to have the room to ourselves. My son had a great time playing, colouring, and looking at books. There need to be more of these play spaces in lounges!
There's a good selection of food and drink in the lounge, which I would say is above average. I wasn't hungry and was saving space for dinner on the plane so sorry, no lounge food photos this time.
A few minutes before boarding was due to began, we left the lounge.
T3 isn't nearly as pretty as the much-newer T5, but walks to the gate are generally shorter.
Boarding had just begun when we arrived at the gate to we were able to queue right up in the fast track lane.
Most other passengers in Business class had already boarded, the cabin would end up being mostly full with just a handful of empty seats.
Like the A330-300s, the Iberia A330-200s have the same Stelia Solstys seat model arranged in a staggered 1-2-1 configuration. The cabin is just shorter on this shorter A330 variant with 5 rows instead of 8. There is also no Premium Economy cabin on the A330-200.
If I were travelling alone, I would pick a window seat in an even-numbered row as they are true window seats and offer more privacy. However, as I was travelling with my family, I selected a row where there were seats together in the middle, which meant and aisle seat for me on the side.
It's a bit exposed, but you can still easily see out of the window and it is very spacious. Plus the cabin is small so there isn't much foot traffic in the aisle to be bothersome.
There is plenty of legroom and seats recline to a fully flat 180 degrees in bed mode.
Printed menus were handed out during boarding. A nice touch for only a 2h flight.
AC power, a USB port, and headphone jack are found on the front of the side console, while seat and in-flight entertainment controls are on the side of the console.
Noise-cancelling headphones are distributed even on these shorter flights–something US carriers do not do on short-haul flights operated by widebodies.
Checking out the IFE as boarding continues, there is plenty on content and Wi-Fi is available for a fee.
Business class and Iberia Plus members get free messaging.
You can browse and select entertainment content from the touchscreen remote.
There's also plenty of children's content and games.
boarding wrapped up on time and and doors were closed for an on-time departure. The safety video was played as we taxied to the runway.
Flight time of 2h14m to Madrid
Wi-Fi became available once we were above 10000 feet. As mentioned earlier, messaging is free for Business class and Iberia Plus members, otherwise plans start at EUR 3.49. Full internet packages on short-haul begin at EUR 8.99
Dinner was served shortly after takeoff. I went for the Spinash Canelone option, which was tasty and perfect for a cold winter day. I've always found Iberia's catering to be rather good for short-haul Business class.
Before I knew it we were already beginning our descent. A short video on Madrid Terminal 4 arrival and transfer procedures was shown.
Looks like we'll be getting in right on time.
Nice views of the Madrid area lights on landing.
We pulled in to the gate a few minutes ahead of schedule.
Last view of the cabin on deplaning. We exited from the forward door.
Immigration was very quick at this time of the evening as no other flights were arriving into T4S at that time.
As we were in the T4 Satellite terminal for non-Schengen flight, we had to take the train to the main terminal to collect checked luggage.
Luckily the wait for bags was short for once, which was appreciated after such a long day of travel.
Thanks for reading!
Flying on a widebody on a short-haul route is always a treat. The extra comfort was well appreciated after a long overnight transatlantic flight and a few hours of rushed visiting in central London on a cold rainy and windy day. Compared to the standard middle-seat-blocked intra-European Business class experience, it doesn't get better than long-haul seats with direct-aisle-access on a two hour flight. Catering was quite good as usual for Iberia short-haul Business. Cabin crew were very professional and attentive as always.
Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 36 avis concernant 2 compagnies sur la ligne London (LHR) → Madrid (MAD).
La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est British Airways avec 7.3/10.
La durée moyenne des vols est de 2 heures et 19 minutes.
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4 Comments
You can see my whole analysis on the T3 lounges in my latest LHR-MAD report.
I will definitelly be missing T3 once IB moves back (in theory next month) to T5!
Oh yes, I also really like the CX lounge, especially the dim sum! I think in my head I was probably assuming the CX lounge was still closed because it had been closed for so long during the pandemic. Plus I really like having the children's playroom in the QF lounge.
Hah, you're not missing much. BA F lounges are not that different from J lounges, except for maybe more accessible and better champagne, and better drink options in general. It used to be that F lounges exclusively had table service though now that's become commonplace in the J lounges since the pandemic (though maybe it stopped? I don't know I haven't been to a BA J lounge in a while)
Fantastic! I look forward to reading it
What? Noooo! Iberia are moving again!?!?! Wow, if I were the Iberia station manager I'd be annoyed to have to move the whole operation AGAIN haha
Thanks for your comments!
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