I went to Peru for two weeks with three friends, flying on Lan between LAX and LIM and on Tans Peru within Peru. Here's a perhaps overly detailed description of our flying experiences, with little or nothing about what we actually did while in Peru.

Here's a page with lots of pictures and a little more description of what we did.

We all met at the international terminal at LAX. The checkin line was not unreasonably long about 2 hours before scheduled departure time, but we heard later from some other people on our flight that they barely made it after long delays in the checkin process. All four of us checked in using the business class line since I have oneworld sapphire (none of my companions have any status on any airline) - they seemed slightly reluctant to check us all in based on only one oneworld elite, but did it anyway.

After getting a snack we breezed through security with no line. After we found the gate I headed to the oneworld lounge with the one guest I was entitled to (chosen by a series of rock-paper-scissors games) to grab some snacks and drinks. We didn't have much time, but managed to grab several handfuls of nuts, bananas, mints and stuff. The lounge is about average for what I've seen in US lounges, although maybe smallish - no substantial snacks, but some crackers, cookies, nuts, and the like, and self-serve booze.

We then took the bus out to the remote gate to board the plane, a necessary procedure that's still mildly annoying. On the trip down the plane was an A340, with 2-4-2 seating in Y; this was my first time in an A340. There was no air conditioning as we sat on the ground, which became uncomfortable. Not too long after takeoff they served a pretty decent lunch (I had no choice other than tortellini, but it was good) and a snack came later (a warm ham and cheese sandwich). There are individual video screens with movies and music on demand and some simple games. About halfway through the flight my seatmate's unit froze as he played one of the games, and then my screen got stuck showing the airshow with Spanish writing. The FA was unable to reset our units, which looked like the only ones on the plane that were malfunctioning. The seats themselves were reasonably comfortable, since we weren't really trying to sleep much. Not a lot of legroom, but enough.

We arrived in LIM at 12:30 am or so, and were greeted by a long, very slowly moving customs line. But we were in no hurry at all since our next flight didn't leave for CUZ (Cusco) until 5:45 am and we didn't plan to leave the airport. After clearing customs we found a food court area to hang around until our next flight, along with a number of other people in a similar situation.

After waiting a few hours the checkin desks opened, and we went down to checkin with Tans Peru (slogan: "As Peruvian as you are.") We had ended up booking flights LIM-CUZ(Cusco)-PEM(Puerto Maldonaldo)-LIM on Tans rather than Lan as we pursued some student discounts that never materialized. Given the choice now, we would have booked it all on Lan, which has a decent website, comparable fares, offers AA miles, and appears to be overall more professional than the other intra-Peru airlines.

With our Tans e-tickets we thought we had plenty of time to check in, but we didn't anticipate the complicated dance we would have to do. First we waited in line to check in. They checked us in and took the checked bags, but sent us to another desk (with its own line) to pick up our (apparently not completely electronic) tickets. Then we had to come back to the first desk to get out boarding passes. And then we had to pay the airport departure tax before finally going through security. Airports in Peru don't include the departure tax in the cost of the tickets, but make the passengers pay in either US dollars (although Peruvian soles are also accepted) as they depart - it's about $4-5 for domestic flights and $28.34 for international flights out of LIM. So anyway, we finally reached the departure gate with little time to spare, despite landing in LIM 5 hours before.

I'll finish the story tomorrow, but here's a quick summary: uneventful Tans flights on a plane possibly older than I am, and op-ups for all of us on Lan back to LAX.