Which airlines have lie-flat business class seats on intra-Europe flights?

A handful of airlines operate short haul UK and European flights with lie-flat business class seats.

Booking these flights can be a good way of experiencing an airline’s business class product without the expense (or time) of flying long haul.

Whilst we have often written about the ability to fly with Avios on widebody aircraft between London and Madrid (on Iberia) and London to Helsinki (on Finnair), we thought it was worth updating our full list for 2025.

I pulled this list together by running a search for particular aircraft types via Cirium’s aviation database. This search was performed for flights in August 2025. Let us know in the comments if we have missed anything.

There is one caveat to this list. Some airlines operate A321LR and A321XLR fleets. These are single aisle aircraft equipped for long haul flights of 6-7 hours, usually flown from Western Europe to the US East Coast. We cannot identify these flights in the short-haul schedules versus standard A321 services.

TAP Portugal in particular has a number of A321LR aircraft with flat beds in business class which see occasional service intra-Europe from Lisbon, including to London and Frankfurt.

Intra-Europe flights with lie-flat business class seats

Remember that this list is based on August 2025 schedules. Whilst the bulk of these routes are permanently running with long haul aircraft, we can’t guarantee what may be bookable for other dates.

Air France

Air France continues to operate a single short haul flight using widebodies, a trend it started in 2023:

• Paris Orly – Bastia (15 monthly 777)

Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus operates a couple of holiday routes on its A330 aircraft.

In addition, some flights to London get the airline’s latest A321LR and A321XLR aircraft, which are a modified narrow body aircraft with a proper business class cabin.

Instead of having these aircraft sitting idle during the day waiting for their return flight to the US, they operate on short haul. We know about London to Dublin but – as per the disclaimer above – there may be others we can’t identify from the schedules. Rob has booked one of these for a Heathrow to Dublin flight in May and will report back!

• Amsterdam – Dublin (daily A321LR)
• Faro – Dublin (daily A330)
• London – Dublin (A321LR)
• London – Shannon (daily A321LR)
• Malaga – Dublin (daily A330)
• Paris – Dublin (daily A321LR)
• Paris – Shannon (two-weekly A321LR)

Air Europa

Spanish airline Air Europa, part of the SkyTeam alliance, runs a number of widebody services throughout Europe including:

• Amsterdam – Madrid (daily 787)
• Barcelona – Madrid (double daily 787)
• Gran Canaria – Madrid (4 weekly 787)
• Istanbul – Madrid (daily 787)
• Milan – Madrid (3/4 weekly 787)
• Rome – Madrid (3 weekly 787)
• Tenerife – Madrid (2 weekly 787)

The 787-9s feature a 1-2-1 layout whilst the older 787-8s have a 2-2-2 layout, but both are flat bed.

Discover Airlines

Formerly Eurowings Discover, this is the low cost long haul arm of Eurowings and the Lufthansa Group operating flights to North America, the Middle East and Africa.

Discover also operates a number of flights using its fleet of A330s in Europe to cater to Germany’s bucket and spade travellers during the summer months:

• Frankfurt to Palma de Mallorca (14 monthly A330-300)

This aircraft features 30 business class seats in a staggered layout.

Emirates

You probably weren’t expecting to see the Dubai-based airline offering short haul flights in Europe, but Emirates does offer a fifth freedom sector that can be booked separately:

• Larnaca – Malta (daily 777-300ER)

Separate from the main discussion here, it is also worth remembering that Emirates runs three fifth freedom routes from Europe to the Americas. It is handy if you have Emirates Skywards miles to burn as taxes are lower than usual for Emirates redemptions. These are:

• Milan to New York JFK
• Athens to New York JFK
• Barcelona to Mexico City

Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines is a strong believer in running fifth freedom flights in Europe to allow it to mop up passengers from cities which cannot sustain their own direct service:

• Stockholm – Oslo (daily 787-8/787-9)
• Copenhagen – Vienna (3/4 weekly 787-8/787-9)
• Manchester – Geneva (4 weekly A350 – read our report here)
• Milan – Zurich (5 weekly A350)

Whilst Ethiopian is shortly to start Manchester to Marseille flights, it does not yet have authorisation to sell this route for cash or miles. It is only a tag flight.

Finnair

Finnair operates a number of widebodies from its hub in Helsinki to European cities:

• Amsterdam – Helsinki (almost double-daily A350)
• Brussels – Helsinki (twice-weekly A350)
• London Heathrow – Helsinki (double daily A350)
• Munich – Helsinki (five-weekly A350)

Finnair’s A330s and A350s feature the revolutionary new no-recline business class seat which we reviewed here.

Iberia

The widebody Iberia flights to Heathrow are the ones we cover the most. These are flown for cargo reasons to connect IAG siblings British Airways and Iberia.

• London – Madrid (daily A350)

Lufthansa

Lufthansa operates a handful of widebody flights between its hubs, presumably to facilitate freight connections:

• Frankfurt – Munich (5/6 weekly 787-9)

Singapore Airlines

You probably weren’t expecting to see Singapore Airlines on this list, but the airline has reinstated a longstanding ‘fifth freedom’ route:

• Barcelona – Milan (A350 every 2-3 days)

However, this will not operate during the summer as Singapore Airlines will operate additional direct flights to Milan from June until September. It does seem to reappear after September, however.

Scoot, Singapore Airlines’ low cost subsidiary, runs a fifth freedom route between Athens and Berlin, although Scoot only has a premium economy-style forward cabin.

Separate from the main discussion here, it is worth remembering that Singapore Airlines runs fifth freedom flights from Frankfurt to New York.

SWISS

SWISS has scaled down its widebody flying in Europe this year, with just one route available:

• Geneva – Zurich (weekly A330-300)

TAP

This summer TAP will operate some widebody flights to Madeira and the Azores:

• Funchal – Lisbon (daily A330/A330neo)
• Terceira – Lisbon (weekly A330neo)

Turkish Airlines

Unsurprisingly, Turkish Airlines dominates this list thanks to its continent-straddling location. A lot of these are operated with A330s which may only feature angle-flat seats in business class.

In August 2025 it is currently timetabling:

• Amsterdam – Istanbul (four-day daily A330/787/777)
• Ankara – Istanbul (daily A350/787/777)
• Antalya – Istanbul (twice-daily A330/A350/787/777)
• Athens – Istanbul (twice-daily A350/777)
• Barcelona – Istanbul (twice-daily A330)
• Berlin – Istanbul (thrice-daily A330/787)
• Bodrum – Istanbul (twice-daily A350/787/777)
• Brussels – Istanbul (almost daily A330)
• Bucharest – Istanbul (thrice daily A330/A350)
• Dalaman – Istanbul (daily 777)
• Dublin – Istanbul (3/4 weekly A330)
• Düsseldorf – Istanbul (2/3 weekly A330)
• Ecran – Istanbul (daily A350)
• Frankfurt – Istanbul (thrice daily A330)
• Geneva – Istanbul (daily A330)
• Hamburg – Istanbul (daily A330)
• Izmir – Istanbul (twice-daily A330/A350/777)
• London Heathrow – Istanbul (five daily A330/787/777)
• Lisbon – Istanbul (3/4 weekly A330)
• Madrid – Istanbul (double daily A330)
• Malaga – Istanbul (3/4 weekly A330)
• Malta – Istanbul (3/4 weekly A330/A350/787)
• Manchester – Istanbul (3/4 weekly A330)
• Mersin – Istanbul (thrice weekly A350/777)
• Milan – Istanbul (double daily A330)
• Munich – Istanbul (double daily A330)
• Nice – Istanbul (5 weekly A330)
• Oslo – Istanbul (3/4 weekly A330)
• Paris – Istanbul (3/4 daily A330/787/777)
• Prague – Istanbul (weekly A330)
• Rome – Istanbul (daily A330/777)
• Valencia – Istanbul (2/3 weekly A330)
• Venice – Istanbul (3/4 weekly A330/A350/787)
• Vienna – Istanbul (daily A350/787)
• Zurich – Istanbul (daily A330)

At least a couple of Turkish Airlines’ A330s are configured for regional flights, which means you’ll be stuck with a premium economy style seat at best.

These flights come with a warning

Don’t forget that you may find last-minute aircraft changes on some of these flights. You are clearly safe if you book Singapore Airlines from Barcelona to Milan, but Turkish Airlines could easily swap to a short haul aircraft for Frankfurt to Istanbul if the load was light.

Many (if not most) airlines will not consider a change of equipment as a reason for compensation or rebooking.

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