At this point I have to say that LAN is the best airline in Latin America, at least in the air and in some airports. LANPASS service, well, now you know the story, so you probably know what I think about it. Customer service not bad, but not as good as they could be.

LAN special service agents at the airports (mostly very nice ladies wearing red suits) are great when they know you fly LAN a lot and you talk to them with respect and always smiling. EZE LAN special service agents are the best and always go beyond.

I have heard that LAN has strong penalties for they employees when they make any discovered mistake. This causes many LAN agents to avoid helping customers. Helping a customer could end in a discovered "mistake" and could cost them a lot. Thus in many airports you will find LAN agents to be helpless or to always say no to everything.

While in LIM I received a strong and repeated NO WAY when asked to change my reservation to an hour early flight to SCL without paying the $100 penalty. I experienced similar problems in UIO and BOG.

EZE check-in agents are mixed and ask permission to the special services agent for everything except the regular check-in process.

SCL check-in agents are great and always offered to change me to the next available flight (when I arrive early) without even saying anything about the penalty. The only opportunity when I had to deal with an SCL special services agents, they were very rude.

I had a normal experience in MIA. Not bad, not beyond standard.

MEX check-in agents and supervisors always were great with solving any kind of issue and always went beyond. I have to thank them for their attention and attitude.

In the air, LAN is great. While in land, other than customer service, the biggest disadvantage with this airline is that they are very inflexible with changing dates on paid tickets.

If you change your departure date, they would require you to pay the penalty immediatly. If you have to change your flight date again, you will have to pay again. If you just don't show up and change the reservation later, in every fare with penalty, it doubles up (most of the time from USD100 to USD200). Most other airlines allow you to change the reservation many times and pay the penalty at the airport.

Adding a little pepper, as their fare structure for coach is goes from the few hundreds to various thousands (Y), it could be very difficult to change the dates of your paid ticket without paying a big fare difference.

This said, overall and for the itineraries I fly, I consider LAN the best airline in Latin America.

LR