12. MDZ - AEP on LA in Y
Mendoza - Buenos Aires (Aeroparque City Airport)
LA 4241
Departure Time: 9:00 AM
Airbus 320
Economy Class Seat 2L
Duration 1 hour, 20 minutes
The Mendoza airport is very small, 4 gates. LAN has a small check-in area, and one check-in counter labeled
Preferentes. We checked-in here for our flight to Buenos Ares. Buenos Ares has two airports, EZE and AEP. EZE is the big international hub, and is far outside of the city. AEP is a very convenient city airport. In fact, a ride from this airport to the heart of town can be completed in less than 10 minutes! We were flying to AEP.
After check-in we waited in the security line, and were at the gate shortly thereafter. There was a
Preferentes line for our AEP flight, so we waited uneventfully in this line. They called boarding and we walked out to our plane.
LAN's peaceful check-in counter at MDZ airport.
The A320 that would take us to Buenos Aires
Legroom on this flight was excellent, the best yet for a LAN economy class flight. I believe, but am not certain, that the first three rows of LAN economy only A320s, and maybe A319s, have extra seat pitch compared to the other rows. Either way, it was a very comfortable economy seat on a 100% capacity flight.
By now with so many short-haul economy flights on LAN, we were getting used to these snack boxes. They change for each flight, and in this case we got some Parmesan cracker thingys, some white chocolates, and some chocolate wafers.
The flight went by quickly and peacefully and before we knew it we were making a
windyinto AEP. A cold front had recently blow in, making temperates in Argentina about 10 degrees Farenheight colder than normal. And it was quite windy. As a result, we had a bumpy, windy, topsy turvy landing as we glided by many high-rise buildings in downtown Buenos Aires. The captain stuck the landing beautifully, and the entire cabin applauded the successful touchdown.
We were unceremoniously picked up at a remote gate and bussed into the terminal. Once at the terminal, we went out to the public bus stops, where for only ARS3.50 (USD USD0.40 at our blue market rate), we took bus 45 into downtown Buenos Aires and walked to our hostel.
The bus didn't actually want to take our money, so our ride (shown above) was free instead of the 7ARS it should have been.
After a 10 minute walk down cobblestone and tile sidewalks, we were at our hostel, Ostinatto. We would be here for the next 3 nights, and I was looking forward to a hostel experience, something I knew very well but hadn't enjoyed in the last 3 years or so.