EN
Certain operator ideals are used to study interpolation of operators between spaces generated by the real method. Using orbital equivalence a new reiteration formula is proved for certain real interpolation spaces generated by ordered pairs of Banach lattices of the form $(X,L_∞(w))$. As an application we extend Ovchinnikov's interpolation theorem from the context of classical Lions-Peetre spaces to a larger class of real interpolation spaces. A description of certain abstract J-method spaces is also presented.