Emirates opens VIP lounge at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium

By BA Staff

The entrance of the lounge is modelled like a Boeing 777

Coinciding with the match between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid, Emirates yesterday inaugurated its exclusive branded VIP Lounge at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid.

Unveiled less than four months after signing the prestigious five-year shirt sponsorship with Real Madrid, the new lounge was officially opened today by Emilio Butragueño, Real Madrid Institutional Relations Manager and former Club player, and Fernando Suárez De Góngora, Emirates’ Manager Spain and Portugal.

Covering an area of 375sqm, the innovatively designed space can comfortably host more than 200 guests during match days. The bespoke design is modelled after the cabin of a Boeing 777 - the same aircraft currently serving the route between Madrid and Dubai. Interior features such as windows and space illumination have been thoughtfully reproduced to mimic the experience of walking through an Emirates aircraft.

The Emirates VIP Lounge will be open to its invited guests an hour before and after matches and is situated just below the VIP boxes from where guests can enjoy matches with an unparalleled view of the pitch and stadium.

Mr Gongora said:

“The Emirates VIP lounge is yet another milestone in the partnership between Emirates and Real Madrid, and highlights the immense value we see in our relationship with the Club and with Spain. The unique space will be instrumental in delivering unique experiences to our guests during matches, and will be a powerful platform for on-going engagement with our customers.”

Emilio Butragueño highlighted:

"It’s an honour for Real Madrid to reach millions of fans worldwide through a leading partner like Emirates. Our association with an airline of this calibre makes us stronger.”

Expected to host over 6,000 guests every season, the lounge welcomes invitees to comfortable seating, large plasma screens as well as gourmet food and beverages. The lounge is replete with imagery that capture Emirates’ on-board experience, global network, and action shots with the new Fly Emirates branding. All of this is set amidst a colour palette customers have come to associate with the Emirates brand.

The interior of the lounge is modelled like a Boeing 777 aircraft including the windows

Real Madrid has been part of Emirates’ sponsorship portfolio since 2011. Emirates also sponsors the Barcelona Open tennis tournament in Spain, a deal which runs until 2018. Emirates currently offers 21 weekly flights to Spain -  a double daily flight to Madrid and a daily flight to Barcelona, which will be upgraded to an A380 operation on 1st February 2014. 

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Wizz Air Ukraine annouces third base in Lviv

By BA Staff

Wizz Air Ukraine, announced today its third base which will open on 30 April 2014 in Lviv to Ukrainian travellers and visitors with one new based Airbus A320 aircraft, the 5th in the Ukraine. In addition to the existing routes to Venice Treviso, Dortmund and Milan Bergamo, Wizz Air Ukraine announced five new routes to Barcelona Girona, Naples, Kutaisi**, Rome, and Valencia.

The airline’s latest growth brings more low fares to Ukrainian travellers and visitors and shows that Wizz Air Ukraine is committed to air travel development and job creation. The new aircraft will support a total of 8 routes and increase seat capacity to over 300 thousand seats in 2014. Seats on the five new routes are already on sale on wizzair.com, starting from as low as UAH 309* (one way with all taxes included).

The flight schedule is below:

Wizz Air Ukraine Route Network From LVIV
To	Starts	Days	Fares from*
Barcelona Girona	30-Apr	Wed,Sun	UAH 419
Naples	30-Apr	Wed,Sun	UAH 309
Kutaisi**	1-May	Tue,Thu,Sat	UAH 419
Rome	1-May	Tue,Thu,Sat	UAH 309
Valencia	2-May	Mon,Fri	UAH 419

* One way price including taxes.

**Subject to regulatory approval

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Trip report: Iberia domestic business class Barcelona Madrid Lisbon

by Vishal Mehra

Last week, I reviewed Iberia’s domestic Business Lounge in Barcelona.

Today, I focus on my first flight with Iberia from Barcelona to Lisbon, via Madrid. This was also my first flight in business class.

Barcelona El Prat - Madrid Barajas
Flight IB2713. Airbus A320. Seat 5F. Business Class
Departure - 18:50, on-time

For intra-Europe and many north African flight, most European airlines don't have a separate cabin for business class passengers. Instead, they use a mobile curtain that is moved after each flight in order to separate both according to the number of passengers flying business class in each flight. This allows airlines to be more flexible, since an Economy class seat can be converted into a business class seat just by moving the curtain.

My Iberia business class seat was essentially an upgraded economy seat with increased seat pitch (34 inches, instead of 31 in economy) and an empty middle seat for increased comfort.

As I settled into my seat I was offered water and something to munch on, while the cabin was getting ready for departure to Madrid. Our departure was smooth, and looking down at Barcelona I saw the beauty of the city once more albeit with an aerial view, bathed in sunshine.

Soon after reaching cruising height, a purser came over and asked for my choice of drink. As this was a short one hour flight, and it was early evening, there was no specific meal service. I must have waited for fifteen minutes for my apple juice to arrive before drifting off for a short nap.

I woke up while we were on our landing approach to Madrid Barajas and I never got my drink, and considering we were on approach, I did not bother reminding the crew of their slip-up. Humans tend to forget things and considering it was my first ever outing in semi business class, I was in good enough humour to forgive as well, but Iberia should take note of such slip-ups, which while minor, have large impact on passenger impression when they occur in the premium cabin.

Looking through the magazine I chanced upon Iberia giving out Pizza at 36000 feet to its passengers, which I thought was pretty unique.

We landed in Madrid on time, disembarkation was quick and I went to explore the airport's famous wavy-roof terminal and the flagship Iberia lounge.

Madrid Barajas – Lisbon Portela International
Flight IB3118. Airbus A320. Seat 1A. Business Class
Departure 2245, on-time
Seat 1A

I was excited about sitting in seat 1A, that magical number in airline seating wanted by enthusiasts, which was automatically allotted to me by Iberia. Business class was the same upgraded economy class with increased leg room, but this time there was just two rows of business class seats, and two out of the eight available seats remained unoccupied, including the aisle seat in my row i.e. 1C, giving me a full three-seater to myself.

Flipping through Iberia’s magazine, I came across this print ad featuring the Taj Mahal and promoting Incredible India. Bought a big smile to my face.

The pre-departure service consisted of a drink and nuts. I chose to go for a tried and tested cerveza, or beer (in English). Service on this flight was better, may be because it was a Schengen flight and I was surprised to find a full-blown dinner served during this short one hour hop to Lisbon. The fish and salad did not appeal to my taste buds, and I moved quickly to dessert.

As soon as I finished dinner we were descending to Lisbon and the beautiful city came in the view with bright lights and hills around it. The landing again was a smooth affair and within five minutes we were at the disembarkation point.

The only negative aspect of this flight was the exit through stairs and buses ferrying passengers to the main terminal. May be it was a short-coming of the airport, considering it was past 11pm at night, but then a full service airline like Iberia should work closely with airport authorities to ensure no dilution in their service offerings.

- Vishal Mehra is a digital marketer at a global agency, smitten by travelling and commercial aviation. He tweets a lot and off late has taken to blogging as well. Follow him on Twitter and visit his blog.

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Lounge Report: Iberia domestic lounge at Barcelona El Prat airport

Guest post by Vishal Mehra

Flying Iberia was supposed to be a flight of many firsts for me so when I was given an option between Vueling and Iberia, I chose Iberia gleefully to be my 32nd airline.

This was part of my recent trip to Barcelona and an open jaw return from Lisbon, on Emirates. I have made some observations about Emirates and it's varying consistency. You can read them here.

This was my first time flying Iberia, my first time flying to Madrid, my first time flying to Lisbon and of course, my first ever ride in Business Class.

I had few British Airways Avios Points to spare and as British Airways (BA) and Iberia (IB) are part of IAG, their miles are interchangeable on each other flights. So after speaking with a BA representative on phone and finding the same availability on their site, I was able to book BCN-MAD-LIS online, and in the process saving myself some phone booking fees as well. Just for reference sake, the same flights in Business Class were coming out at Rs 16,000, with economy at Rs 6,300 approximately.

Iberia domestic lounge at Barcelona El Prat airport

I also chose to have a slightly longer layover at Madrid Barajas Airport, almost three hours, as it was my first time at that airport and I wanted some extra time to check out the terminal's famous wavy ceilings and of course the flagship Iberia Sala Lounge.

This is the first part of my three-part report of the trip, focusing on the lounge experience at Barcelona’s El Prat International Airport. Keep in mind, that my first flight was Barcelona to Madrid, thus I’m able to document only the relevant domestic lounge for Iberia.

Reaching the airport two hours in advance, so I could check out the Business Class Lounge, had its advantages. There were no passengers in the premium check-in lane and I must admit feeling a little bit giddy with my first ever foray into it. The lady at the counter was nice enough to suggest that my mobile boarding pass may not be comfortable for everyone at the airport and offered me the old-school paper boarding passes. My baggage got tagged as priority for the first time ever and I could not avoid a smile seeing that.

No view towards the apron or airside

The priority security line was quick and I was through in five minutes for my long walk to the "Puente Aereo" area, which literally means Air Bridge in Spanish. As the Madrid-Barcelona route is the second busiest route in Europe, there's a separate section of the airport, which handles these shuttle flights. To cater to the high corporate demand, the lounge is nearby these gates.

As I entered the lounge, my first impression was the lounge being relatively small but airy.

This was going to be my first flight in business class but I possess reasonable experience about Lounges, thanks to some kind airport/airline folks in the past, and credit card rewards.

The lounge had very few occupants. I decided to park myself at the far end of the lounge, looking out to roads connecting with the airport. Unfortunately this lounge had no direct view of the apron or the airplanes parked.

The lounge however had a reasonable collection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. They had a reasonable availability of juices, along with chocolate drinks and water on one end of shelf. Opposite that, the fridge contained aerated soft beverages, milk, water and beer

The lounge also had a small bar area with choices of wines, spirits but the star attraction for me was of course local Spanish cava (Spanish sparkling wine). The bottle was dipped in ice cold water for that perfect crisp taste.

However, this lounge lacked severely in food options. The shelf next to the bar had few cabinets of breads, croissants and pastries, along with some ready-to-go munch options and I especially took

liking to these potato chips or crisps.

There was a nice little coffee and tea machine available as well, with a variety of flavour options, for those who were looking for a hot drink.

Unsurprisingly there was very little to read in English. All the newspapers were non-English, ditto for magazines. The only option in English was Iberia’s own magazine, which I decided to skip for that time.

With 15 minutes to go until boarding, I decided to pour myself a glass of cava. Free Wi-Fi in the lounge enabled me to check on my emails and get some quick pending work done. Barcelona airport also offers free Wi-Fi to travellers, but it’s limited to 15 minutes in a day, per device. After that it’s chargeable.

Few minutes later sure enough my flight was called out and I proceeded to the nearby gate to embark on my first A320 for the evening.

Coffee bar

Stay tuned for the remaining reports of this journey.

- Vishal Mehra is a digital marketer at a global agency, smitten by travelling and commercial aviation. He tweets a lot and off late has taken to blogging as well. Follow him on Twitter and visit his blog.

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Video: Leo Messi joins Kobe Bryant as global brand ambassador for Turkish Airlines

By Devesh Agarwal and Vinay Bhaskara

Flag carrier Turkish Airlines has signed international soccer superstar Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi, of La Liga club, FC Barcelona FC Barcelona as a Global Brand Ambassador. Messi joins NBA superstar Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, and professional tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, who have been brand ambassadors for the airline since 2011 and 2010 respectively.

In September, Messi shot a "Fly With The Best" TV commercial for the airline with Kobe Bryant in which the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy.


Recently Turkish Airlines added the 200th aircraft to its fleet, and now flies to 92 countries, more than any other airline in the world.

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