I flew the inaugural LEVEL Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Spain in May, 2017.
LEVEL Airlines – My Experience
In March 2017, I was doing my normal morning price scouting across multiple platforms, mostly out of curiosity. I wasn’t expecting to find anything out of the ordinary, but boy was I wrong. Everything was normal until I found a price from Los Angeles to Barcelona for under $300 showing IBERIA as the airline. At first, I immediately thought it was a mistake, but I followed through the link anyway.
Freaking out, I immediately started messaging my friends to see who was available for June 1st, for a flight to Barcelona returning to Oakland on June 6th. Thursday to Tuesday for $250, I couldn’t let it pass. Shortly after, I received a message from one of my friends without a single word on it, just a picture of her passport information. Another message followed saying “book it!” I entered all our information, completed the checkout processed and booked it. Then I received confirmations from Iberia; it was legitimate!
I now only had to find the Oakland to Los Angeles portion, luckily this was easy and Southwest came to the rescue. Now emotions are slowly decreasing. I’m reading through the confirmations and I find that it says Iberia, operated by LEVEL Airlines. “What’s LEVEL?? I never heard this before.”
I started to get a little bit worried, and I started Googling the name. At the time, they didn’t even have an official website! It was extremely hard to find. With time and some patience, I found some articles stating they had just opened reservations for Level Airlines… Exactly on the day I booked. I read throughout and I realized I’m flying the inaugural route of LEVEL from Los Angeles to Barcelona. Suddenly it was more special than I ever thought.
Never having flown a long haul budget airline before, I was very skeptical. As we all know, usually these end up price gouging you for everything; however, I was pleasantly surprised. Before our check-in, I was able to purchase our baggage for $44 ea., a little bit pricey, but for the overall ticket price, I can’t complain. In-flight meal also had to be pre-ordered.
During our check in at LAX, unfortunately there was a power outage affecting the terminal. This resulted in massive lines all across the International terminal. We had to wait over 3 hours before we were even able to check in; once the power came back, all of us combined with other airlines had to go through security. It was a mess. The inaugural flight already had a rocky start, but it’s not LEVEL’s fault so I can’t complain, I was just excited to be flying to Barcelona for such an incredible price.
At the time, LEVEL had only two repurposed Airbus A330 planes from IBERIA. These were repainted to LEVEL’s Colors and the interiors re done. The crew were all from IBERIA and it seemed like there was a lot of trial and error going on. You were suppose to be able to order items through the entertainment screen, as it gave you options for food, drinks and many items that were available for purchase. Throughout the entire flight however, the system was not working properly and it wouldn’t take payment information correctly. There was an IT person from LEVEL on-board, but even then it was very difficult to make the application via the entertainment screen work. This resulted in many manual orders being done and passengers constantly calling the flight attendant.
TV and movies are free, which is a great perk to have during such a long flight. The flight, aside from the earlier delay, was very pleasant. The seats were comfortable and the A330 cabin did not make it feel cramped. It was a great experience and for the price I would most certainly do it again.
If you are looking for cheap alternatives to Spain, be sure to check out LEVEL as they might offer very competitive pricing compared to other airlines.
Also be sure to check out my flight report from Barcelona to Oakland onboard LEVEL’s A330
