Iberia to Operate More than 80% of Long-Haul Flights and 60% of Short- and Medium-haul flights

• While the Madrid Airport recovers its activity after the effects of the Friday snowstorm and subsequent freeze, Iberia is redoubling efforts to resume normal service as soon as possible:
  • Wednesday and Thursday it will operate more than 80% of its normal long-haul flight programme from Madrid
  • For domestic and European flights from Madrid the percentage will be higher than 60%. The following flights operated by Iberia, Iberia Express and Air Nostrum remain cancelled.
  • Iberia is notifying affected customers of cancelled flights and requests that they do not go to the airport. They can change their flying dates easily on the website www.iberia.com.  
• Iberia is allowing customers with cancelled flights through Friday, 15 January, to change their bookings without cost, choosing dates until 20 March.
  • Since the Madrid airport closed on Friday more than 23,000 customers used the “Manage your Booking” section of the website www.iberia.com to change their flying dates.
  • Iberia’s call centre lines have often been saturated despite substantial staff reinforcements, receiving more than 48,000 calls in the past few days. Iberia requests that customers use the website whenever possible, leaving the help lines free to deal with special problems that cannot be resolved on the website.
• Since the airport closed last Friday, Iberia has focused its efforts on lending every possible assistance to the customers affected:
  • Iberia booked Madrid hotel rooms for more than 4,500 customers, 2,000 in Madrid and another 2,500+ passengers from flights diverted to the Canary Islands, Barcelona, Malaga, and Valencia.
  • To customers obliged to spend the night in the airport when it closed,  Iberia handed out more than 3,000 blankets plus bottled water, sandwiches, biscuits and other non-perishable food. It turned over the Dalí VIP lounge to families with small children.
• Iberia is proud of its employees, some working double shifts and facing extreme conditions during the emergency, and who assisted airport staff in and military emergency units in clearing away snow from aircraft and runways. Abnormally low Madrid temperatures followed the snowstorm, forming sheets of ice that have significantly slowed ramp operations at the Madrid Airport, delaying some flights.