OpenSky

The last time I flew latam a bunch was before the pandemic. Was recently in South America and on a bunch of premium economy and business class tickets across the different companies.

Some obssrvations, across Latam Peru, Brasil, and Chile.

1) 90 minute check bagaage cut off?
For most airlines 60 minutes is the norm, but I was rather shocked to learn that is was 90 minutes at JFK, and most international stations. For most airlines, esp for premium passengers is 60 minutes. The only other airline I know of that has a 90 minute cut off is SAS, but only if you are in economy.

2) Ground Staff were outright surly - and poorly trained.

The old staff are gone - some of the people working the check in "preferential" are rew and don't know how to use Sabre facing LATAM portal except for the most of vanilla of requests. Same lining - i.e checking in bags from Latam Brasil to Latam Brasil on two seperate tickets were denied, the same for Latam Peru. They only know how to do the most vanilla of things.

Simple things like attaching priority tags - they forgot.

3) The lounge catering was borderline crap - this at GRU. I remember what it was like before the pandemic.

4) Most annoying : I also noticed that thoughout the system there was this obcession to board early, 1 hour before departure, and in most cases the plane also left early! The ground staff annoyed me to no end - I took it upon myself to show up to the gate as as late as possible ( on purpose in spite ) - in all cases, I got lectured ! - they then scrambled as soon as they realized I was a premium passenger - not sure why? I did have things to do in the lounge - and most planes do not have wifi, so boarding late was out of necessity, and calls to make and messages to reply.

5) Cabin crew was delightful as always, catering largely dependent on where you left from. It tends to be better leaving the US, not so much leaving Peru ( I was suprised). Better leaving Brazil. At least in premium economy there is "service" now. Eveything was served covered and not opened , and unlike the European carriers no hot towels/nuts .


6) Since Latam is no longer in one world, in some cases I had to pay for extra bags beyond the 2 or 3 - the pricing for this was dynamic - and got more expensive closer to depature. ( this is new)

If anything my main two take aways - LATAM is too big for their own good, and I think worse now that its out of One World. Did I enjoy the flights ? Not really. But since they are a near monopoly I didn't have a choice, and it got me to where I needed to go. Would I go out of my way to fly it, especially since its not one world anymore? Certainly not. They also got rid of all their A350s.