Iberia Airlines Review

Overall Rating

none

see above

We are a family of four with two small girls of nine months and four years. We flew to South America with Iberia connecting in Madrid in April 2009 returning three weeks later.

A week before the flight out, we re-confirmed our seat reservations for both ways, which had been done months earlier. I did this to ensure we had a baby basinette for our youngest daughter. I went to the Iberia counter at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, to do this. They told us the seats and basinette were no problem.

However, a week later, upon checking in, we were told that, for the return flight, we did not have reserved seats and never had any. Further, we could not have a baby basinette on the long leg as all the seats with basinettes were now taken. I asked to speak to another staff member. He came and told me that all the seats were indeed now taken and, moreover, were taken by families with children because, he said, these seats are assigned only to families. They could therefore not be changed anymore. I said I had re-confirmed the seats a week earlier. He asked me who I had re-confirmed with and when I told him I did not know the name of the person he said I should always take down the names of staff I spoke to. I told him he must be joking. He then said if I wanted the kind of service I was looking for I should fly a higher class (which would be business class).

I told him this was unacceptable. No sign of regret, understanding, care, anything. Overall, the attitude of the people at the counter I talked to was rude and they were making things up to get rid of us. We are serious people traveling with a family dealing with Iberia's mistakes. But we were treated as if we were some kind of nuisance.

On the flights I saw numerous people having seats in front of the basinettes who were not traveling with families

I cannot state clearly enough how unacceptable this is.

Further, we were booked on a return connecting flight from Madrid one hour after our arrival at Madrid at 10am. The 11am connecting flight which we had booked was cancelled after our booking. Instead of booking us on the next available flight at 4pm, they booked us on the second next at 8pm. When I told them we could not wait for ten hours in Madrid, they told us that the earlier flight was full and nothing could be done. We then complained to Expedia where we had bought the ticket and they, Expedia, apologised and put us on a flight one day earlier. Iberia could not have cared less. Further, on the return flight, they lost one bag out of four on the way back and this also had a very unsatisfactory, unfriendly response.

The bahaviour of staff towards us was unacceptably rude. The buck truly stops when you travel with small children on what are already difficult long hauls. Iberia, and specifically their staff in Frankfurt, could not have done worse.