Review of Iberia flight from Madrid to London in Business

【 Back in Business 】

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report!

This FR will cover my final flight of 2025 on a rather boring route between Madrid and London. I don't usually do FRs on European short/medium hauls as they are all very similar regardless of who you fly with. It makes it rather dull for me to write as I usually end up saying the same thing over and over. However, this one is special as we'll be flying on Iberia's A350s in business class. Unlike in Asia, European airlines don't usually fly widebodies on their short/medium haul routes. Iberia has always operated at least one widebody a day on this route. It was on the A340-600 a few years ago before the airline retired and replaced them with the A350. My understanding is that the widebodies are used primarily because of heavy cargo demand between the two cities.

This is my first time flying business class on a widebody in ages - the last time probably being 7-8 years ago with family. It basically means that I have little to no knowledge/experience of what a 'good' business class product looks like in 2026. Because of this, I'm gonna treat this FR as more of a documentation of the flight as opposed to an actual review - I'll leave you to decide whether Iberia's business product is good or not. I've got more business class flights coming in the future, so hopefully these business FR will get better as I do more of them.

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

【 Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport 】

You join me at Madrid Barajas Terminal 4. I just came in from Malaga (no FR on that flight), and I'll have around 4 hours before my flight to London. 

The insanely long departures list for the morning/afternoon. 

Our flight will depart from Terminal 4S, which involves a shuttle ride. But let's have a quick walk around T4 first. 

The food court. 

There are plenty of duty-free stores around. 

Taking the shuttle to T4S, which is much nicer in my opinion. 

And here it is. The usual duty-free area. Iberia's lounge is actually located here, but let's have a walk around the gate and do some planespotting before checking that out. 

Oh look! An Aer Lingus A330 heading to Dublin (DUB). This looks to be temporary as Aer Lingus is now flying their A320s to Madrid as usual. 

For Summer, Aer Lingus is flying the A330 to seasonal destinations such as Malaga and Faro

The end of the terminal with an American Boeing 787-8 heading to Philadelphia (PHL) and an Iberia A330-200 heading to Los Angeles (LAX).

An Emirates A380 arriving from Dubai (DXB) and a World2fly A330-300 heading to Santo Domingo (SDQ) in the Dominican Republic. 

Anyway, quick planespotting done! Let's head to the lounge. It's located next to the duty-free area, as I mentioned. 

And here it is. As you'd expect, it's huge! 

There's a nice selection of food available. However, I ate in Malaga (and on my flight here), so I didn't really touch the food. 

Some more photos of the lounge. 

You also get amazing views of the apron from here!

There's also a tiny section hidden in the corner. I spent most of my time here as it gave me amazing views of the apron and is very quiet. ;)

Qatar Boeing 777-300ER arriving from Doha (DOH). 

Iberia A350-900 arriving from Buenos Aires (EZE) in Argentina. 

【 The flight 】

Let's head to the gate!

Flight time to London will be around 2 hours and here's our route:

Boarding started on time and here's the IFE and tray table. 

Iberia has 3 configurations for the A350-900, this one is equipped with 33 business class seats. Each seat comes with a 16" HD touch screen display and is fully reclinable into a bed for long hauls. 

Looking back, there's a reading light, a remote, a pair of headphones, and the seat controls. 

A closer look at the USB ports. 

There's also a universal power outlet at the bottom. 

View out of the window. I purposefully selected a seat further back to get a nice engine view. 

Pushback 15 minutes early, which isn't something that happens often. ;)

Taxiing to the runway with an Air Europa Boeing 787-8 heading to Santo Domingo (SDQ), an Iberia A320neo heading to Manchester (MAN), an Air Europa Boeing 737-800 heading to Paris (ORY), and finally, an Iberia CRJ 1000 heading to Nice (NCE).

Takeoff! Bye bye Spain!

Climbing above the clouds. 

And finally, reaching our cruising altitude. 

Before we look at the IFE, I should mention that the Wi-Fi is not available on this flight. This was mentioned during boarding. Normally, business class passengers get basic Wi-Fi for free (I tested it on my Malaga-Madrid flight, which worked ok). 

Let's have a look at the IFE. It was rather annoying to photograph as the screen is so far away compared to what I was used to normally - first world problems haha.

There are around 400 movies and 200 TV shows available, which is a very nice selection. The audio section also includes music for kids and narrated stories, which is super helpful for families. 

On top of that, a separate kids' section is also available. 

The duty-free catalogue. 

The fully interactive moving map. 

The sun starting to set somewhere around Northern Spain. 

Shortly after, the crew came around with the meal. Here's the menu (handed out during boarding).

And here it is. I picked the pasta. The benefit of having a proper menu is that I don't have to type out what everything is. Hooray!!! You have no idea how hard it is to remember/describe the food often months after the flight. I have it written down in my notes, but they're more of a reminder than a detailed description… maybe the lesson here is to write better notes haha. 

Anyway, the crew came around separately with a bun and coffee. Everything tasted amazing, as you'd expect.

Over France. 

Shortly before descent, a tiny bar of chocolate was handed out. 

Starting our descent into London. 

Here's our approach path. It's the standard LHR approach for flights from the Southwest over the Ockham VOR. 

The great thing about this approach is the amazing views of the city you get. Sadly, a phone camera really couldn't get any of the details. I'd love to get my DSLR and just photograph London from the air when I fly into LHR again. 

You can see the Thames down below with Canary Wharf in that 'U' shape created by the river. 

Central London. Tower Bridge is the rightmost bridge over the river. The City of London is slightly to the left of that. 

The London Eye can be seen as that purple thing on the river. The bridge slightly below that is Westminster Bridge with Big Ben to the left (you can't really see it). Those two black rectangles on the left without any lights are St James's Park and Green Park. Buckingham Palace is in the middle. 

Over West Central now. That massive rectangle without any lights is Hyde Park. You can see Hyde Park Winter Wonderland as those insanely bright lights in the park. It's the annual Christmas fair with ice skating rinks, Christmas markets, and a ton of live shows and rides. I've been a few times, but never realized it's that bright in the air. 

The West London suburbs of Hammersmith and Acton. 

That football stadium with the bright lights is the Gtech Community Stadium, home of Brentford FC. A quick Google search shows that there's a game going on between Brentford and Leeds - it's too bright in the picture, but I could actually see the players on the pitch, which is crazy. 

And finally, welcome to London! We arrived on time. 

Iberia is the only foreign airline using Terminal 5 at LHR. Other than that, it's a terminal for British Airways only. 

Parked at the gate. 

Quick photo of the seats during disembarkation since I forgot to do it earlier (I'm still figuring out how to do business class FRs haha). 

【 London Heathrow Airport 】

Here's the sole photo of me walking to immigration. I come to LHR so often I just went through everything as fast as possible… and somehow forgot to take any photos. Honestly though, I've done so many FRs arriving at LHR that I don't think it matters that much. 

I'll end this FR here. It was nice flying 'proper' business class for the first time in years. Thanks for reading, and take care!