Review of British Airways flight from London to Madrid in Business

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the second part of this short series of transatlantic flight reviews.

Like every year, we headed back to Europe for the summer because we've become those fancy people who use seasons as verbs 🤣

Kidding, of course! As French expats, most of our family is in Europe so it's nice to spend some extended time "back home" when the kid is out of school thanks to remote work.

As usual when heading back across the big pond to the old continent from San Diego, we flew British Airways. We covered the very nice 777-300ER Club Suites experience in the previous review and we'll cover the decidedly less luxurious intra-European business class experience in this instalment. Normally, short-haul business class within Europe is nothing exciting, as it's essentially the same seats as Economy with marginally better legroom, blocked centre seats, and a meal service; however, this flight particular flight was a little more interesting for a Eurobiz hop as we finally got to try BA's new short-haul cabins.

Routing

Reviews in this series:

Transit & Lounge

As we'd arrived over an hour ahead of schedule (I know, unbelievable at Heathrow!), we had plenty of time to head to the lounge for breakfast. What was originally meant to be a 2-hour connection turned into a much more leisurely 3-hour layover. 

Transit security was quick for once–it was surprisingly uncrowded and we had no problem using the security lane on the right with the new machines which speeds things up as you don't have to remove electronics of approved liquids from cabin baggage. 

After security we headed right downstairs to the South Lounges. I won't go on my usual rant about how silly the path is from security to the south lounges having to head downstairs to then head right back upstairs and end back up just a few metres from where you started…Oops, I guess I did rant just a tad, my bad 😉

As this was my first time at Heathrow since the death of the old British Airways Executive Club on April Fools day 2025 (R.I.P), I noticed that signs for the BA lounges have been updated with the new "British Airways Club" logos. I also won't go on a rant about how I feel about all that, but you can imagine I have strong opinions. 

With our BA Gold/oneworld Emerald status, we have access to the BA First Lounge, one level up from the concourse. Business class passengers and oneworld Sapphire status holders have access to the Club Lounge located another level up. 

The "Executive" may have been cut from the name of BA's loyalty programme–along with essentially any shred of value in Tier Points–but you, Oh valiant Horse Lamps of the BA First Lounge, have been a constant in my life for years! May you continue to stand watch at the entrance for many years to come.

I found the lounge to be a little quieter than normal. 

As there looked to be quite a few empty seats, we headed out to the terrace area of the lounge, which I prefer as it gets a lot of light and has some nice views. Be aware, however, that on sunny days it can get quite warm here as it's essentially in a big greenhouse. 

First things first, time for a bubbly morning beverage. 

This will do…I'll continue my #RoséAllDay theme from the previous day. It is summer, after all. 

Since I'd slept through breakfast on the inbound flight, I fixed myself my own English Breakfast…with a croissant instead of toast–I'm still French, après tout 😏

I do like that all the elements are there for a full English, and living in the U.S. I don't get black pudding too often so it's always a nice treat when we're passing through T5 in the mornings. 

They even rolled out an Ice Cream stand around noon–I had one happy kid when he saw that! It was actually perfect timing because it was beginning to get a wee bit hot in the terrace greenhouse.

Being the AvGeek nerd that I am, of course I tracked our inbound flight on Flightradar25 and was pleasantly surprised to see G-TTSD would operate our flight.

Delivered to BA in April of 2025, G-TTSD is the newest A320neo in the BA fleet at the time of the flight and this writing. 

I watched the aircraft land and park at the stand from the lounge. Great, we won't have far to walk! It was good to know where the gate would be because, of course, as usual for British airports, our assigned gate was not posted on the screens until less than an hour prior to departure. 

Oddly we were showing an on-time departure, but delayed arrival. I assumed there were some ATC delays en route as it's been a very busy summer–and ATC strikes were in the air…more on that in a future report!

Boarding

We left the lounge a few minutes before boarding was due to begin. We were at one of those gates crammed in a corner with little room to queue. It's crazy to me that there are several poorly designed gate lounges like this in such a modern terminal. 

Needless to say that when Group 1 was called, there were tons of people blocking the priority lane that were just in the way. 

A little polite crowd-slaloming later and we were down the jet bridge. 

Far from being among the first on board. Group 1 was absolutely huge on this oneworld hub-to-hub flight with 12 rows of business class–the Club Europe cabin went all the way back to the overwing exit rows! I didn't see any empty seats anywhere so that's 48 passengers in business class on a narrowbody! It's in situations of high-demand like this where the flexibility of the movable cabin divider curtain in European Business class comes in handy vs fixed cabins. 

The new cabins look chic and premium–though, personally, I still find the older BA cabins to be quite nice, at least in Club Europe. 

Unlike on older BA A320neos, where the central cocktail tables were taken away to save weight, the tables are back with the new cabin design as the new Collins Meridian seats are lighter than the previous Pinnacle seats. 

I like all the details and stitching. BA have clearly made an effort with the design aesthetics of the new cabin; however, I was surprised to already see signs of wear like permanent creases in the leather in several places already on such a new barely-two-month-old aircraft!

Looking at some seat details, the literature pocket it at eye-level, much like the older Pinnacle seats, saving room at knee-level. 

And my favourite part…USB-A AND C! Wooohooo, battery anxiety CURED! At least for a fleeting moment. 

There's a coat hook on the side, similar to the previous seats, but I've never used them as I've always imagined it would be easy for something to get caught on these hooks and rip. That, and I don't like intruding on others' space.

Speaking of space, the legroom feels slightly improved with these new cabins, in my opinion. While the CY180 configuration is the same as A320neos with the Pinnacle cabins, the fact that the new Meridian seats have a thinner and more modern design carves out a bit of extra leg space. 

I could even cross my legs, which, with my average-ish height of 1m78 (5'10") is not usually possible for me in these types of high-density configurations. 

One thing I'm not a big fan of is the new bulkhead design, which I find simple and boring compared to the 3D silver speedmarque on the old design. 

The friendly cabin crew handed out water bottles in Club Europe as boarding wrapped up. 

The flight deck crew confirmed my earlier suspicion of ATC delays, announcing a short gate hold of just about 10-15 minutes.

The cabin crew kindly turned on the in-seat power as we waited at the gate, which I appreciated…

…Because of my stage-4 battery anxiety! I mean I was like at 85%…that's practically dead; can you imagine!? Oh, I shudder at the thought!

While printed menus aren't a given on many short-haul routes, I've consistently seen them on LHR<>MAD.

Some very decent options for a 2h flight. 

The Flight

The gate hold ended up being shortened and we were ready to go. It was expected we would make up the short delay in flight and arrive in Madrid on time. 

Lots of good planespotting on taxi out! I love LHR for its diversity of traffic. 

This Icelandair 767 sporting the new livery actually looked quite good in real life. I was expecting to hate it, but I kind of loved it. 

There was a bit of a conga line for departure, which is typical for Heathrow with only one active departure runway at any given point. 

I also like the new-ish Aegean livery

Two more to go then it's our turn. 

I'm always amazed at how Heathrow can handle so much traffic with only two runways!

Byeee T5!

Shortly after takeoff the crew announced that the Wi-Fi wasn't yet operational on our brand new aircraft but should be getting installed shortly. Not a huge deal as I don't usually buy Wi-Fi on short-haul flights, though I do usually take advantage of the free messaging for members of the British Airways Executive Club…oh sorry, I mean British Airways Club…just Club.

Within a few minutes we were over the English Channel, or as my people call it "La Manche"…that's right, you don't own the Channel, England! 😆

Service began shortly after levelling off with an apéritif. After a few glasses of champagne in the lounge I just had a Coke Zero. 

My son's pre-ordered child meal was served first as usual. It was a nice chicken pie–much better than the meal on the previous long-haul leg. As mentioned in the previous review, that was a fluke, as usually BA's CHMLs are quite good. 

For the adults the Do&Co catering quality is consistently good, though, as mentioned before, there's not a huge variety. As a frequent BA flyer, I feel like I have the same meal over and over again. Still, it's always tasty, fresh, and well-presented. 

The trays in Club Europe are clearly too small–the cheese is hanging on for dear life trying not to fall off!

Avocado and prawn cocktail
Sour cream and Marie Rose sauce

After the meal service, I barely had time to read a few pages of my book before we were already making our descent. 

It was a hot and hazy summer day in Madrid. The crew announced a temperature of 35C/95F on the ground. ¡Caliente! 🥵

The pools at the amusement park were looking good!

View of the Cuatro Torres on landing. 

We did indeed end up arriving at the gate on time despite the short departure delay. 

As usual, we breezed through passport control at T4. I always hear horror stories of it taking over an hour to get through immigration, but I've never had that despite flying through MAD dozens of times a year. I imagine the issues with long waits are with non-EU passport queues. 

Checked baggage was out surprisingly fast–it's not uncommon to have to wait over 45 minutes at the baggage carrousel, but this time was only around 25 minutes. 

We then headed to the Metro station, conveniently located right under T4, to head into the city centre. 

A quick half hour later we were at our hotel, the imposing RIU Plaza España, one of the most recognisable hotels in Madrid along with the Four Seasons. 

We had some amazing sweeping views of Plaza España and the city centre from our 18th floor Family Suite. 

And of course, we were able to enjoy some evening drinks and tapas from the iconic Rooftop 

¡Salud!