Review Iberia premium lounge Dali in Madrid

Madrid is Iberia's hub, company OneWorld owned by the IAG group, which also includes British Airways, Vueling, Level and Aer Lingus. The Spanish carrier has two lounges at this airport and this is the one dedicated to passengers on domestic and Schengen flights.

Location

The lounge is located just after the security checkpoints: impossible to miss since the red wall is opposite the scanner and metal detector station.

Access

Access to this lounge is allowed exlcusively to the business class passengers of Iberia flights and partner airlines, or to the elite status holders in the Iberia+ program or at least Sapphire in one of the One World loyalty programs.

The lounge

The hall does not face the runway, but is embedded within the terminal, as ITA's new lounge at Fiumicino. This means that it is bright, but one cannot sit and admire the movements on the track.

Past the reception desk, you simply enter by scanning your boarding pass and enter one of the three rooms that make up this lounge.

At the ends we have two mirrored sections, with the island dedicated to the buffet in the center. Very ignenous is the idea of keeping the outside of the structure for cold offerings, while inside the circle is the hot offering.

Then there are two walls, one on each wing, equipped with coffee machines and other hot drinks, coolers for soft drinks and water.

All around are various types of seating. Coffee shop type tables, more comfortable stations with armchairs and even more nap-like chairs. Power outlets everywhere, in some cases even small tables with lamps installed for working when the environment gets darker.

In the middle of the two areas is the wine bar, a more intimate environment with darker colors than the other two lounges where white and Iberia red dominate.

Here there is a TV tuned to an all news channel, a sofa area, and a bar area with classic tables. As you might guess from the name, the bar counter is set up here, although it is not a real bar. It lacks a secluded, quiet area, although the wine bar is supposed to serve this function.

Services

There is an area to safely store luggage and then there is virtually nothing else.

Nice is the automatic people counter that shows the level of crowding in the lounge and shows how the guests are distributed in the 3 different rooms of the lounge.

There is wi-fi, there are toilets and showers.

I took advantage of the shower: it happens to me very often when I travel. I like to get on the plane fresh and smelling good. I went to the front desk and they gave me a code to open the door.

There are about ten showers available to passengers-they are small bathrooms with everything. From the toilet to the washbasin, the shower of course and all the products you need to get out fresh and relaxed.

Food & Berverage

As mentioned, there are two identical islands in the offerings in the two different sections (north and south) of the lounge. I visited this lounge in both breakfast and dinner hours and the offerings were more than varied. At breakfast time, in addition to fruit and croissants there was a varied hot offering, from classic "boccadillos" or hot rolls, to potatoes and sausages. Beautiful fruit with fresh sliced pineapple, I had never seen it presented this way in a lounge.

Some areas are operational on an hourly basis. For example, there is no real barista, but a Lavazza machine is manned and operational in the early morning and post-lunch hours.

The same goes for some areas of the buffet that are manned with time indications, all very neat and functional, with plenty of staff going around to re-sort dishes.

In the wine bar, in addition to the coffee machine, there is the alcohol area with the option of pouring yourself some wine from the automatic wine cellar or fishing out a beer or other from the various coolers in this area.

In conclusion

The classic Schenge lounge. Here, unfortunately, only Air France with its lounge in terminal 2F offers something different and really top: all other companies more or less offer the same soup and few (e.g. Brussels) aim for something different.