Iberia A340-600 economy (I actually forgot how awesome it was) (2024)

The following is a full review of my Iberia Airlines A340-600 economy class experience from Madrid to London in August of 2019.

I know what you’re thinking. Iberia retired their last A340-600 in 2020. Is a full review of this experience even necessary? This probably isn’t going to be all that helpful for anyone doing research for an upcoming trip.

But let’s get real here. Since when has common sense ever prevented me from having a bit of airline related fun?

IB3166
Madrid, Spain (MAD) – London, England (LHR)
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Aircraft: A340-642
Registration: EC-IZX
Duration: 1 hour 49 minutes
Seat: 44L (Economy Class)

My full review of Iberia Airlines A340-600 economy class from Madrid to London (LHR)

Iberia has a long history of flying large widebody aircraft between Madrid and London’s Heathrow Airport. Most every long haul aircraft in their fleet (all throughout their history) has been assigned to that route at some point or another.

In 2019, they were operating at least one A346 between these city pairs on a daily basis.

Arrival at Terminal 4 Madrid Barajas Airport

I arrived from Amsterdam in KLM 737-800 economy class approximately 3 hours before this scheduled departure to London. Never in all my years of flying have I had a more nonsensical transfer experience. Long story short: moving between terminals at MAD is straight up maddening.

The boarding process for flight number 3166 to London

10 minutes prior to boarding, they had everyone queue up into organized lines (one for each zone).

Once boarding commenced, they shuffled everyone down the jet bridge in an orderly fashion – only to have the operation ground to a complete halt at the aircraft boarding door. It turned out that the cleaning crew wasn’t quite finished yet, so we all had to wait.

Seat overview

Economy class on the Iberia A340-600 was configured in a somewhat dense 2-4-2 layout. That said, legroom was excellent by long haul economy class standards. The seats were well-padded – which is something I don’t find myself saying all that much these days.

The departure out of Madrid

Would it shock you to know that there were no weather delays? It shouldn’t. This is Spain after all (where the sun never stop shining), so airlines don’t usually have the luxury of blaming Mother Nature for delays. Thankfully, Iberia was on it today, and they didn’t have to scramble for excuses.

In-flight entertainment

This may be a vintage airline review, but there’s nothing old school about what I’m about to show you. In-flight entertainment on those old Iberia A340-600s was legit. We’re talking large video screens at every seat, an excellent assortment of movies and TV shows, and even wi-Fi. It was pretty good for 2019.

The food

Being served a (free) small snack in economy class on flights within Europe was common in 2019. Unfortunately, Iberia had a slightly different take on this. On one hand, their in-flight menu was fairly impressive. On the other hand, nothing (not even drinks) was complementary. #wompwomp

Seat comfort

Comparing these the comfort of these seats with the comfort of other Airbus A340 long-haul economy seats is probably the best way to describe my thoughts on this matter:

• Compared to Air Tahiti Nui A340-300 economy, the Iberia seats were softer.
• Compared to Edelweiss A340-300 economy, the Iberia seats had a LOT more legroom.
• Compared to Lufthansa A340-300 economy, the Iberia seats were…uh…very Lufthansa-like.

The descent and arrival into LHR

Because I had inadvertently dropped my trusty ‘ol GoPro 5 down an open ventilation opening next to my seat, it was hard to fully appreciate the sights and sounds arriving into London. I’ll spare you the details of all that drama – but I made a video about it (if you’re curious).

Pros and cons

To this day, and this was the best intra-European economy class flight I’ve ever had. And that’s saying a lot considering that not only did I drop my camera down a ventilation shaft mid flight, they didn’t serve any free snacks or drinks. It was fun.

Pros

• The seats were incredibly soft and well padded.
• Legroom was excellent – and more spacious than other European airlines at the time.
• Video screens at every seat!

Cons

• The 2-4-2 seating configuration felt a bit dense.
• The price of Wi-Fi was ridiculous (though typical of the time)
• I was not a fan of the camera swallowing air vents.