Still in transit, the second time experience with Iberia Airlines

A frustrating transit through Madrid airport over Iberia airlines service desk.

Here I am going to share my 2nd experience with Iberia airlines, I’ve heard enough terrible stories from other people but this is the time I really want to complain. I love Spanish culture overall but this time I was very disappointed with the staff’s attitude at Madrid Airport. Iberia airlines changed our reserved seats without notifying us so when checking in online we were very surprised when we discovered that we were going to sit very far apart from each other in the middle seats and instantly we tried to change it online but the system wouldn’t let us. I thought surely we would be able to change it at the airport in London Heathrow, but no. The checkin desk in London Heathrow told us that we should be able to change at the Iberia transfer desk when we arrived.

Here we are, standing next to the Iberia Airlines desk in the flight connection area but there was no-one to be seen. I went to see the lady sitting behind the information desk who refused to help but just tells me to stay there and wait, someone will turn up. Another passenger joined us with the same issue, so we chatted to him for a bit. 20 minutes passed by, went to the information desk again ask for help but hopelessly I was told just to wait a bit more. Time is ticking and all of us were becoming a bit anxious and 40 minutes passed, I finally managed to convince her to call someone to help. Just by listening to their conversation on the phone (she put the phone on speaker), someone from the Iberia office literally told her that she was too busy to deal with us now and left another telephone number which was never answered.

Just less an hour left until our 2nd segment was due to depart and we decided not to bother anymore so maybe we can try the people outside the boarding gate. The 40 minutes of waiting at the unattended desk for nothing…

We also had the same problem with Iberia last time when we flew with them to Guatemala City, the online system didn’t let us checkin or to print the boarding passes, neither could British Airway checkin desk in London Heathrow.

Not much luck with Iberia Airline twice, both times have stressed me a little bit. That’s a pretty poor record of performances, no other airline we have used has been so consistently bad.