While details remain limited as of now, Iberia has plans to introduce a new business class suite with doors.
In this post:
Iberia new business class coming late 2023
International Airlines Group (IAG), the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Vueling, released its quarterly financial results today. During the presentation, an exciting development was revealed about Iberia’s business class.
Iberia intends to install a new business class product with doors on Airbus A350 aircraft. The plan is for the product to be installed as of December 2023. Iberia currently has 12 A350s in its fleet, with a further eight on order. Presumably newly delivered jets would feature this new product first, while it remains to be seen with what timeline existing planes would be reconfigured.
No plans have been announced for Iberia to reconfigure Airbus A330s, which are the other long haul jets in the carrier’s fleet. Furthermore, Iberia has eight Airbus A321XLRs on order, and we don’t know what those cabins will look like either.
What will Iberia’s new business class seat be like?
Iberia will be partnering with Recaro on its new business class seat, and based on the picture that has been released, Iberia seems to be selecting Recaro’s CL6720 seat, with the optional door.
For context, the CL6720 seat is an evolution of the CL6710 seat, which can be found on EL AL’s Boeing 787-9s, TAP Air Portugal’s Airbus A330-900neos, and Azul’s Airbus A330-900neos. This is a staggered configuration, but unlike some other similar configurations, not all seats are directly forward facing.
Air China has already been announced as the launch customer for Recaro’s CL6720 seat, as Air China will install these seats on upcoming Airbus A350-900s.
This looks like a significant upgrade over Iberia’s current staggered business class configuration.
Bottom line
Iberia plans to introduce an all new business class product on Airbus A350s as of late 2023. It looks like Iberia has selected Recaro’s CL6720 seat, for which Air China is the launch customer. This represents a fantastic improvement over Iberia’s current business class. It’s just too bad that we’ll have to wait until the end of next year for the first plane to even feature these cabins.
What do you make of Iberia’s new business class?
It's a great spacious layout, doors or no doors. Sure beats the hell out of UA tight fit next to the aisle with no privacy.
Doors can only be useful if they are used correctly, so i think that the doors willl not give you much privacy because they are too short. so should have gone with privacy dividers instead or make the doors higher, and also would be improving service and installing air vents be their top priority rather than adding a glorified PR stunt?
doors can only be useful if they are used correctly, so i think that the doors willl not give you much privacy because they are too short. so should have gone with privacy dividers instead or make the doors higher, and also would be improving service and installing air vents be their top priority?
I don't get the obsession with doors. Nobody's going to sit in my seat anyway I don't need a door to stop them. Stop with the vanity and focus on real comfort.
Agree 100% iberia crews belong to the rudest you might experience, spent the money in reliable service @ catering and skipp doors
Don’t know when was your last flight with Iberia but catering by D&CO is very nice in european J and long haul. And crew where always very nice and helpfull with us....our last flight was 3 weeks ago with IB
Hodor!
Doors are a must, conditio sine qua non for business class. Seems like Iberia will be finally offering a proper J product. No doors = premium economy.
WTF, no doors = premium economy?
Did every economy (no doors obviously) conditio sine qua non upgraded?
Lucky, I really liked your article about airlines and personal air vents a couple of years ago. It has been extremely useful, but with all the a340 and 747 many older 777 200 retirements since the pandemic, it may well be a very valuable update post Covid travel restrictions and with the new fleets.
Personally as a Northern European I cannot cope with the high temperatures of Iberia cabins in any class. Until they start...
Lucky, I really liked your article about airlines and personal air vents a couple of years ago. It has been extremely useful, but with all the a340 and 747 many older 777 200 retirements since the pandemic, it may well be a very valuable update post Covid travel restrictions and with the new fleets.
Personally as a Northern European I cannot cope with the high temperatures of Iberia cabins in any class. Until they start introducing individual air vents above each seat, they will be much too hot for me to sleep and relax in any comfort during a long haul flight. So will be interesting if these a350s have the individual air vents, as it is one of the most important booking considerations for me.
Sweet! Hope they fly these to LatAm and not just NA
I’m only concerned that the new seats could be used as a reason for a devaluation. The fact that one of the best redemption bargains in the world remains flying J on IB from the Northeast/Midwest to MAD is not something I take lightly.
Well said...devaluation is in the air with no end in sight
It's fascinating how the sense of exclusivity and luxury has evolved from open unrestricted space to a tiny box. One reason why I love LH F is because it always feels spacious and unrestricted. In comparison, ANA's new product reminds me more of a cubicle.
How about using some of those long-legged A350s to start nonstop service from far-west cities to Madrid? I'd swoon over the chance to fly nonstop from SEA or YVR to MAD. Iberia already has very thin service to LAX and SFO. SEA and YVR are closer to MAD, and it would be an awesome way to go.
Skip the doors, save weight, fly to Seattle or Vancouver.
Ha. As someone who spent most of yesterday frantically searching for award space from MAD to west coast, I concur
Options look too claustrophobic.
I really enjoy flying Iberia longhaul and agree with ChadMC that they are quite underrated. The current seats are quite good (I'm not one of the fan boys/girls of "all things doors all the time", and actually had one fail on me on a British Airways flight, trapping me in my seat and forcing a move pre-landing for safety reasons). Iberia's food is quite good, too, and we've had very good service (if not to...
I really enjoy flying Iberia longhaul and agree with ChadMC that they are quite underrated. The current seats are quite good (I'm not one of the fan boys/girls of "all things doors all the time", and actually had one fail on me on a British Airways flight, trapping me in my seat and forcing a move pre-landing for safety reasons). Iberia's food is quite good, too, and we've had very good service (if not to Asian-carrier levels) every time we've flown them over the past five years)
I only fly AA and UA. Just for the air vents.
What difference do doors make when they have crappy service? They should invest their money in training their people better and improving their processes.
I think their current product (maybe not the 350s as I don't believe those have massage functions built in) is quite under rated. The service (pre-covid) was always fine, the food and wine both really good. The pre-arrival 'meals' were always a huge disappointment, but putting that aside, they've always offered a solid product to and from Madrid.
As NK3 stated, air vents would be much higher on the priority list over doors.
I would gladly trade doors for individual air vents. They keep the cabin rather warm, and their A330s don't have vents. I can sleep with or without a door, but not when I am uncomfortably hot.
Second this! What good is a door if you are uncomfortable. Warm cabins are the WORST!
People often forget you don't have to use the door if you don't want to
Great. Will they stop losing my luggage then?
Doors, schmoors, stop with the bizarre door fetish.
Give us a comfortable seat, give us enough room for the foot cubby, for hips and shoulders when in lay-flat position. Nobody cares about the doors except credit-card shills.
Right god forbid a credit card pushing blog writer see someone else while traveling. I remember TPG being horrified that they made eye contact with the person across the aisle.
Meh, nothing revolutionary, nothing to get excited about. Basically, industry standard, keeping up with the Joneses. All I ask is they add wireless charging as it'd be really convenient rather than lugging a cable around.
IMO wireless charging in a plane has never really worked. It has the potential if they executed it a little better by having the phone sit in a tray of sorts but just putting my phone on the console has never really worked if the plane made any slight movement (which they tend to do sometimes)
Qatar seems to have a pocket for wireless charging on their 787-9s.
Doors!! I f*cking love doors