Iberia is one of the latest airlines to take delivery of the Airbus A350-900, which they’re using to replace their A340s.
The airline began by flying the A350 to New York JFK, with that service launching in August. Iberia’s next A350 routes will be to South America, though the airline has now revealed their next US route to be operated by the A350.
Iberia will begin flying the A350 between Madrid and Chicago as of May 2019. More specifically, as reported by @airlineroute, the airline will fly the A350 between Madrid and Chicago on May 27, May 30, and June 4, 2019, and then daily as of June 22, 2019.
The schedule for that will be as follows:
IB6275 Madrid to Chicago departing 11:35AM arriving 2:00PM
IB6274 Chicago to Madrid departing 4:25PM arriving 7:25AM (+1 day)
Prior to this aircraft swap, Iberia is using an A340-600 on the route daily.
Iberia’s A350 features a total of 348 seats, including 31 business class seats, 24 premium economy seats, and 293 economy seats. That capacity is roughly comparable to that of the A340-600.
The good news is that Chicago is historically Iberia’s US gateway with the most award seats, so there are lots of options to redeem miles for this flight. Award availability for next summer isn’t amazing yet, but I imagine it will open up over time.
If wanting to book an award ticket for this flight, expect to pay the following number of Iberia Avios (off-peak and peak):
- 17,000/20,000 Avios for economy
- 25,500/35,000 Avios for premium economy
- 34,000/50,000 Avios for business class
Meanwhile if redeeming American AAdvantage miles you’d pay 30,000 AAdvantage miles one-way in economy, or 57,500 AAdvantage miles one-way in business class (redemptions in premium economy aren’t possible).
In terms of the onboard experience, unfortunately Iberia didn’t get all that innovative with the A350. While the plane as such is smooth and nice, they basically used the same business class seats as they have on their other widebody aircraft. They only have slight modifications. Here’s a review I wrote of Iberia’s A340 business class, for example.
Anyone plan to fly Iberia’s A350 business class between Chicago and Madrid?
Does anyone know if Iberia still plans on changing their old a330 to the newer a350 on their MAD-ORD-MAD route? Google flights still has the old a330 listed to the end of their calendar :-(
The other route is Buenos Aires (which is way more important and profitable to IB than Chicago) but anyway... I guess that’s not important.
Iberia has a basic and unfortunately common business class product. Nothing special. I know that they are now working to renew service on board. I hope they will improve it. It's an expensive business class product but the service and quality of it is not related to this high price.
Just cancelled (insert heart broken emoji here) IB6250 12 Nov 2018 JFK-MAD that was showing A350-900 (and its return IB6251 20 Nov 2018 MAD-JFK also showing A350-900.)
My suggestion: take a close look at the hardware; you may not have to wait until next year to fly the goo stuff.
Flying ORD-MAD business on July 3rd-July 14th 2019. Thanks to Iberia 9K promo.
I just booked (last week) 4 Premium economy seats ORD-MAD for next July. Used 25K MR points with the 40% bonus to cover the 35K Avios for each person. Glad to see the A350 taking over this route.
You just made my day. I redeemed 102,000 Avios I got from the 9k per flight promotion to fly my wife and 3 year old in business class on May 27 Chicago to Madrid. It was the only day with 3 available business class awards. Looks like I’ll be on the second flight. Thanks for letting me know Ben!
Not seeing any award availability on this route
I flew ORD - MAD roundtrip in March on the A330 as the A340 doesn't serve the route until the late spring. The 330 was fine, but the A350 should be a nice substitute! Iberia also has great paid fares out of Chicago in the fall and spring, last year I flew ORD to Paris (ORY) via MAD roundtrip for $413.
isn't it 17000 for economy, and 34000 for business?
@ Rex -- You're correct, thanks!