Review of Iberia flight from Madrid to Helsinki in Business

INTRODUCTION

Hola amigos!
Welcome to this FR covering Iberia (flying for Finnair) between Madrid and Helsinki.
Turns out this time, it was cheaper to fly business class than economy, so…no brainer.

For some reason unknown, this route connecting to OneWorld hubs is only served once daily (I have never flown an empty flight on this route)…which is somewhat inconvenient and allows AY to charge outrageous fares (sometimes as expensive as flying to the US). Another oddity to this route is that its not flown on AY metal, but on IB.

This results in a series of inconveniences and issues…the biggest one of in my opinion is that it mixes the worst of AY and IB. AY's crappy and near LCC non-flight experience, and IB's awful seats for a 4-hour long flight. 

Anyhow…let's get it on.

At Madrid Barajas

Back in the day, it was a treat to rideshare to MAD, it was less expensive than cabify/uber or taxis…

Which will be our ride to Helsinki today??

Finnair has its own check in counters, even though it is staffed by IB's personnel. The flight was packed. Luckily I was able to use the priority lane.

As I was IB gold at the time, I was able to enter the Sala Dalí (I don't recall if I would have been able to enter because I was flying business). It wasn't too crowded and we had a nice breakfast.

Time flew and then it was time to board.

Boarding my first "Finnair" flight

I usually like to fly the "local" airline to the place I fly to, but things being as they were…this is the best I could get.

There was just one row of Business class. A basically full flight today. The "cabin" felt a bit cramped.

An FA came by to greet us and told us about the meals we would have today. No PDB offered.

En route to Helsinki

Being one of the last to board, we practically waited no time before leaving.

Air Serbia was a newbie at MAD back then…

A view to the long hauls at T4S…and a little AerLingus 320 to Dublin

We were off over the sunburt Castille

The very "intimate" cabin…

We had our first service of crackers and water

Summer of 2022 was quite harsh in Europe, and it showed…

We then got our menus

The basically cloudless skies allowed for a fantastic tour over France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and finally Finland

We were served over Paris. Mrs Chibcha had the Pasta and I went with the "paella", they were quite good.

The IFE continued

Quick visit to the loo

Moi Suomi

One of the "perks" of flying Iberia are the super smooth landings

Now in Finnair land…note the IB intruder from Barcelona

We unboarded and I took one last picture of our "Finnair" plane..

We grabbed a cab and were in Töölo in no-time. Kicking off our summer adventure in Finland.