Categories

What is it like flying British Airways from Gatwick on a leased Iberia Express plane?

I  recently wrote about how BA will be leasing Iberia Express aircraft and crew this summer for a number of its Gatwick services. If you already booked with BA, they should notify you if you are flying a different airline. If you are booking on ba.com it’s pretty obvious where you come to select flights.

The routes that it will operate on are:

  • Cagliari,
  • Madrid,
  • Mahon,
  • Malta,
  • Seville,
  • Venice
  • Verona.

It will also operate SOME flights to:

  • Bordeaux
  • Dubrovnik,
  • Faro,
  • Malaga,
  • Malta,
  • Marrakech
  • Nice

My friend Sam recently flew on one of these on a Malta trip.

On these flights, there are only three rows of business class i.e. 12 people with the middle seat blocked. Two crew look after the business class cabin. The business class cabin has a seat pitch of 30.0″, the same as BA.

Business class seat Iberia Express

Sam said “I was pleasantly surprised, the crew were great, it was their first day operating for BA so everything was new to them.
In summary the seats were uncomfortable – no padding, no recline. However the crew were great, the food good, and mugs still exist at Gatwick! Heathrow is paper cups at the moment  due to a supply issue.”

Here was the menu:

Drinks were offered first. As you can see everything is pretty much the same as you’d expect on BA. It’s interesting that Hot Chocolate is available on request – I really fancied some on my long-haul night flight this week and there was no mention of it on the menu. Hopefully, it comes back there too.

Macaroni cheese with truffle

Here’s a sneak peek at the breakfast menu on the outbound flight:

Iberia Express does have entertainment you can stream on your own device. It has a good range for short-haul with recent films, TV, magazines, and games. Plus you have a moving map which I always like. 

However, there’s no internet or messaging though. The WiFi was just for streaming/moving map. You also have to give quite a bit of information to get access to the entertainment. This is due to signing up for an Iberia Express account – Name/email/year of birth/country/password.

Tweet
Share
Pin1
Share
Reddit
WhatsApp
Pocket
Email
Flip
1 Shares
Related Topics

10 comments

  1. We are booked on a BA flight from Palma to Gatwick in July this year which we have been notified has now also been changed to Iberia Express, so can add Palma to your list

  2. What happens if there are more than 12 business class passengers? We’ve been changed & only 4 seats shoeing available, typically BA want to charge £25 per person!

    1. This was the case for my outbound to Malta Debbie when our BA flight changed to Iberia, I was offered the option to cancel, take an economy seat or amend my booking to another day. I took the last option for no fee but appreciate it’s not always possible.

    2. They will move others to different flights. It won’t show the full availability if you don’t have status as some seats are blocked until online check in.

  3. We have also been changed and on our flight only 3 showings and there are 2 of us. Not prepared to pay BA extra and it would seem have to wait until 7 days before to see whether we actually have seats

  4. Do you know if luggage allowance is the same? We often take bike boxes which as Gold members are free on BA whether you are flying Economy or Club. Can’t find on BA website if this true for Iberia. And as we know getting through to them by phone is a challenge..

    1. Apart from the plane and crew it was as if it were a BA flight, check in was done with BAs agents in Malta, food and bars were the same, they even read out the BA scripts on board after take off and on landing.

      So I suspect you will get everything as you would on BA.

  5. Does somebody want to tell BA there haven’t been any free range eggs in the UK for about 8 weeks now. All hens have to be kept inside ( and have been for months on end now) due to a rampant avian flu that’s been kicking around since mid, last, year. The Gov / FSA issued an extension from 12 weeks up to 16 where they allowed producers to carry on calling them such as it’s a universal problem but that expired about 2 months ago.

    Not exactly the end of the world but it’s the little details eh.

Comments are closed.