I don’t usually like to tear into products or services, I try to find good things to write about and be positive for the most part, but this isn’t a usual post.  I just flew from New York’s’ JFK airport to Barcelona, Spain on Iberia airlines.  It was a real pain in the ass from beginning to end, and we still don’t have all our luggage so it’s not over yet. When we arrived we checked in at American Airlines First Class area (my father in law is a million miler and has lifetime privileges) and there was no ticket for my daughter, in addition my wife and sister in law could not have their boarding passes from Barcelona to Tel Aviv.

While on the flight I bent over to get something from my bag under the seat in front of me and  was elbowed in the head by a male flight attendant.  It wasn’t to hard but instead of apologizing he said to me, “excuse me……. I’ve got to do my job.”  My wife said my jaw dropped, I expected him to apologize.  I wasn’t in any real pain but that’s just what you do when you unintentionally strike someone in the head, right?

After landing we asked for help in getting the 2 boarding passes and we were told to walk to the other side of Barcelona airport.  We walked back and forth at least twice before getting fed up.  We finally went out of security and over to the El Al counter where they were kind enough to assist us.  Iberia was not when directly asked for help.  We were a party of 8, 2 of us being in their 70′s and probably should not have been rushed around a large airport.  In my opinion Iberia should have offered assistance with fixing our situation or at least offer to transport our 2 older travelers.  I was totally dismayed and disappointed with the experience.  After finally getting the 2 boarding passes and to the gate we were faced with the fact that one of our pieces of luggage did not arrive in Barcelona.  My poor mother in law was in tears, all the gifts for her grand children and other family we were visiting in Israel were missing along with her dress and other nice clothes were in the missing suite case.

After arriving in Tel Aviv we waited for over an hour for my mother in laws missing suite case before filing a missing bag report.  Instead of being offered any compensation for not having her dress and gifts we were told “we’ll get in touch with you”.  I personally got involved and started calling Iberia.  I was put off by them and rarely got thorough to any human being.  I called their Israel, Spain, and US offices and never got any assistance.  I ended up getting help from El Al airlines who went above and beyond.  Multiple times they walked over to Iberia for me and checked for the missing bag.  It finally arrived after going missing for 5 days.

I tend to expect this kind of action from a company with a beta product not a corporation with offices all over the world and that has been in business as many years as they have.  Iberia you can do better, a lot better.