A new pair of terminals, T4 and T4S, have been recently inaugurated at Madrid Barajas airport. These terminals are poorly connected with each other, with the other terminals and with the metro station to Madrid. According to the official information on the Iberia website, which under some circumstances may be over-optimistic, the transport between the terminals can be as long as 45 minutes (waiting plus transfer time). You have to add the time necessary for security checks when changing terminals.
When planning your travel to Granada, please ensure that you have sufficient transfer time when travelling via Madrid. Sometimes it may be better to travel directly to Granada (currently there are international flights from London (Monarch and Ryanair) and Liverpool (Ryanair); direct connections to Rome and Lisbon are planned), to Malaga or via Barcelona.
Starting October 26th 2006, there will be direct flight connections between Frankfurt/Hahn and Granada. These Ryanair flights will be on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. From Hahn airport, there are bus connections to major cities in the area.
If you choose Iberia, please note that according to the AEA consumer report of May 5th 2006 (association of European Airlines, http://www.aea.be ``Press Releases''), this airline has been in the first quarter of 2006 on place 24 of 25 European airlines in the category of baggage losses (19.7 lost per 1000 transported). The reported range of baggage losses was between 4.1/1000 and 19.8/1000. Averaged on the entire year of 2005, Iberia was on place 21 (with Air France on place 20, and Deutsche Lufthansa on 22). On average 85% of the missing bags are traced and delivered to the passenger within 48 hours; however, we recommend that you keep material that you need for your observations in your hand luggage.