Eastbay1K

Peru is in America. Their target market is everyone who will buy a ticket on the carrier. It is up to the overlords in Chile to determine what they want to do about this without starting a revolt.

Take a look at your typical longhaul LP crew. Relatively tall, generally attractive, and fairly white. [Take a look at your typical walk around anywhere in Peru. Take a look at who is cleaning your airplane during "escala LIM" if you are on a thru-flight.] The attitude started long before they ever set foot on the airplane. "Front line" employees in much of Latin America are hired amongst some of the nastiest ageist, sexist, and racist standards in the world.

MfromL

Which doesn't mean they are not Peruvians at all (they can be white looking for Peru's standarts but they are, after all, poorly paid kids that didn't had upper education, mostly. That explains why they have such bad manners, to most observers). The difference between them and any maitre in an upper class Peruvian restaurant is that they fly in a plane, but share the same misconceptions.

I don't believe that the 'overlords' level of thinking goes so far into sociological issues such as the cultural biases that a given country has and its impact on their types of costumers. I think they want to deal with the majority of their costumers, not specific publics.

But, if we want to go there, even though LP is an international airline, part of a bigger conglomerate, its main target are not US or European costumers, its the Latin American folk. And by those standarts the white looking customer service, tall and young is common. At least in Peru. If you want to show that you provide a fancy or good service, then you'll hire someone that looks white and thinks its better than most its public.

And the middleman will do as he likes in his position, he is the king of his really small hill, unless he gets caught. That is why is so common to see those ungranted upgrades for family members of the LAN staff.

That's what I am talking about. There is an issue, but has to do with our culture of service and the standarts by which our market is articulated (I must admit, a really racist market put in place from the vestiges of a racist colonial society).

I'm not trying to defend the bad service of LAN or the deterioration of its business product, just to understand it. Nice debate, BTW.

bingocallerb22

LAN uses the exact same protocol manual across all its divisions. Funny how it gets delivered differently when operationalized in different countries.

BTW Being a traveller, I find it impossible to make broad generalizations about cultures anymore, always so many exceptions.

For example, I flew MIA-LIM-MIA in November. One direction was excellent, had a entertainment system problem the other direction. I guess LAN was vile in one direction, but not the other. Doesn't matter to me because both directions I enjoyed upgrades on reward tix and they gave me $200 TV for my IFE problem.

alomme

Reminds me of this :



By the way, which route are you flying LP? I haven't seen an attractive stewardess on LP since 2006 (probably) .

carlosdca

I am guessing you did not mean it. But, as written, sounds plain stupid and ignorant.

LP FA crews are not a reflection of "Peruvian culture." IME, service in restaurants, hotels, etc. by Peruvians is usually great, sometimes over-bearing.

I hope you are not wishing for American service culture as the one offered on US based airlines. US based airlines (AA, DL, UA) offer awful service and are arguably the worst.

That myth of American Service culture can only be seen at certain restaurant and hotels.

MfromL

I feel the need to say that, as a Peruvian, I don't believe this statement to be true. That 'myth' can also be seen in the public transportation in a 10 million inhabitants city (lived in Lima 26 years), or the education system (I'm a university professor) and many other places.

The excelent service culture you are talking about is marginal within only some restricted restaurants and parts of our society, where tourists are included. If Lima has about 10 million people (official statistics, early this month) at least half of them are clasified as being in social segments called 'emergent', where informality is a regular practice.

I'm getting out of topic: it might be due to a combination of flaws in the administration of LP and in the mentality of their staff. I think I just wanted to point to the fact that the answer to LP bad service and rep does not lie just it being an intrinsically bad airline in comparison to other airlines in the LAN group; it also has to do with the mentality of the country where it is based and the people that work there.

You might point to LAN being a single corporate conglomerate with common practices; different behaviours in the LP staff on specific routes; any different alternative is just an example of what I think this whole thing is about.

I've been lurking in this forum for the past 2 years. Been flying with LAN for about 10 now. I have sensed a really strong antiLAN vibe going on for quite some time, mostly for LP: service standarts, quality of the product, staff, timetables, airport practices (thats not LP!), whatever.

I don't know if I'm right buy I have a theory (I'm a sociology professor): I think that it might be due to cultural differences, most people here are non South American (correct me if wrong but a lot of you are based on the US). I get it that way. Its not that the product is bad, is that is different, out of a confort zone. Some of you might even like to fly in AA rather than LP, my god, AA! Its not LP, but I don't want to be a d!ck and say is you, is the interaction between you that creates this akward love/hate or hate/hate relationship.

Is the same with me. I rather be shot that fly in any US carrier. But I do it, and curse all the time when happening, and then I'm glad its over. And then I call my family to tell them all the crap that happened in those awful planes.

It is so weird being human. You love what you know, hate most of what you don't.

Eastbay1K

You make some interesting points, but generally, the LP service, given the same food and service standard as LA, on the same general routings, will be worse. Trying to dump a hot main course on my tray while I'm still eating the starter and without removing that plate? Trying to serve everyone a full international J meal in 45 minutes and start your next 6+ hours of not having to bother with passengers (from a culture that likes to linger over meals).

I've lived my entire life in California, and have no South American ancestry. I prefer to fly the LAN carriers over the US carriers to/from South America. The SFO route, however, gave me more LP service than I cared to have. Well, actually, less service on more flights. Even the inaugural flight was a dud, service-wise. (The SFO ground staff was great, however.)

I understand and appreciate service and cultural differences, and make it a point to let LAN virgins know to use the call bell, to know that there's no post-departure cocktail service unless you specifically ask, and so on.

I also know that (re: the deterioration of the food) the TAM "merger" found TAM in a much sorrier state than LAN anticipated, bleeding cash that needed triage.

Even if Peru service standard are more relaxed and informal generally, that would be fine, and much superior to curt and/or indifferent, with an attitude, which is a not-infrequent LP experience. It isn't though I haven't had some really nice LP flights. But mostly, I have low expectations.

alomme

Flamers gonna flame.

bingocallerb22

Just for clarity, so the casual reader is not misinformed. This blasting of LanPeru discussed here is mostly based on some experiences on their few international routes. I'll not comment other than to say that as with most airlines their crews on long hauls often are vastly different from domestic routes.

I had a bout 30 LanPeru domestic flights last year. The planes were spotless. The crews were spotless. The flight services were delivered professionally and consistently. Mostly younger, eager to please crew tho there are some older staff too. Always a smile, always responsive to my requests. Often I was impressed how they went well beyond to help older folks and loved the kids. Short flights but a snack box and a can of premium beer. I had nice chats with the crew who were always available trying to please. In the air LanPeru domestic flights are consistently top notch IMHO.