At all costs, if possible. Very lengthy, very scathing review below.

I purchased tickets for their flights with trepidation, having read all the horror stories. We didn't really have another choice in regards to time and flight routes. They have NOT improved. We're now on the 2nd of 4 domestic flights and they have already screwed us over bigtime.

First was Iguazu to Salta. They'd already changed the time by several hours between my buying the ticket and our arrival to Argentina. Good sign, right? They do not bother sending out flight delay alerts and don't update their site even though I checked flight status the morning of the flight. I don't know why either of these are difficult to do. The flight was delayed over an hour upon arrival at the airport so, in total, 4 hours later than I had bought the tickets for. We were MORE screwed because we were driving to Purmamarca, approx 4 hours. It was raining heavily. It was dark. We were on unknown roads. Not exactly a good time.

Flight 2/4 - we got up at 4am to catch a 6am flight. No one in their right mind gets up at 4 unless they have somewhere to be. Upon arrival at the airport at 5, we were informed the flight was cancelled, even though by the crowd it looks at least half full. Our given option was to wait for an Andes flight at 8am. At that point, I was beyond pissed at having woken up at an ungodly hour when we could have slept for 2 more hours. But, it gets even better! Upon arrival in BA, the next flight to Mendoza is at 2:40 so we must wait 5 hours in the airport (assuming of course the flight leaves on time ha) and our entire day in Mendoza is shot.

Can I return to the non-usage of flight updates that every other airline implements? Are they a bunch of sadists who enjoy making hundreds of people wait at airports everyday, wasting their time and ruining carefully planned vacations?

I am just waiting in horror at what they will do to us for the remaining flights - one whose time they have already changed 2x. I expect only the very worst. I can't return my tickets, but they can change, delay and cancel to their heart's content. I have traveled quite a bit and on different airlines. Aerolineas are truly the worst and I know my story is hardly new or unique, but I will be posting this in every nook and cranny of the Internet with the faint hope that someone in corporate will change this godawful bullsh*t. They do not deserve to be in business.

Update: flight 3/4. I'm sitting in Aeroparque - quelle surprise! Our flight left on time from Mendoza- I thought it was a Christmas miracle. I bought, as 1 ticket, a flight to BA with a connection to El Cafayate. There was 40 minutes between flights, which I knew was tight.

We were not issued boarding passes for both flights which I didn't realize until on the first plane. I raced to their counter and asked the guard if I would make the Calafate flight waiting on the line and was told yes, No problem. Of course I was told differently by the man checking us in. Silly me, having flown extensively, to be so naive as to think Aerolineas would hold our connecting flight for us when they saw we were on board and needed that connection. As any other airline would do. I asked the manager if they wouldn't make an exception since this was their fault, not ours. We had no baggage to check and only had to get past security. Nope. Didn't care.

We were sent first to wait on line at the ticket sales desk, and then told from there to go to an unmarked office across the hall to get tickets for the flight in 3 hours. Super. So why in hell do they sell these tickets as a package when they're physically impossible for anyone to do? 11 days in the country, 3 of them ruined by Aerolineas.

Not good at all.

I agree, AR are best avoided unless there really is no alternative. Out of principle I wouldn't fly with them because they are far too well protected by government and unions.

I had them cancel a late flight from BA to Iguaza last year. They moved me to a Midday flight that day which would have cut my time in BA, and what turned out to be the best afternoon.

To be fair I had about 5 months notice, but I had booked hotels and had change the number of days I was staying in BA and Iguazu. Luckily it wasn't one where I would have faced a penalty for changing.

As soon as the email came (yes, they did send me one) I bought a LAN flight for the next morning. As the Aerolinas ticket was a fully flexible one I left cancelling it right up to the morning of the flight. The main reason was to delay the credit going on my card so I could trigger another 2-4-1 voucher with BA (as in British Airways, not the Ciity!!), but it did feel a teeny bit good getting some sort of payback for cancelling my original booking.

A 5 month notice of schedule change is likely to occur on almost any airline. AR's biggest problem is that one is likely to have an unanticipated day-of-travel schedule change, which might have you wandering around an airport aimlessly for hours, or be stranded in a city without a hotel reservation, or missing your reservation in the next city, and so on and so on. This is what a subsidy of approximately US$2M a day buys. I sense that if they threw another $1M a day at the company, it would even be worse.

Sorry that this experience made you upset. But why complain if we know - just adjust - it's a holiday .

I am at present preparing a trip to Argentina and checking on Flight Aware AR routes like BRC-FTE and USH-AEP are not performing too bad.

Of course I will always allow for a potential 24 hours delay and avoid tight connections.

I think with this attitude and buying flexible and refundable "Club Condor" tickets is the best approach to enjoy traveling without getting upset. Expect the worse and be positively surprised .

behuman is right. ^

AR do provide a normal service most of the time it's just that we usually only get to hear the horror stories about them. As he points it's always a good idea to organise an itinerary with some leeway especially on connections which will enable you to enjoy your holiday without any added stress.

By the way, Lan the good guy down this way are also guilty of changing schedules.

My experience with AR has been adequate. I did discover their annoying tendency to change flight times. But once I figured that out, I adjusted my attitude and simply expected to leave on a certain day but not necessarily at a certain time.

I have found that AR is quite good at emailing me 2 days before my flight to notify my when it will actually leave. That said, if I don't receive an email I do ask the hotel concierge to call AR for me to verify the flight details. This saved me once on a SLA-AEP segment!

Service on board has actually been quite good. I've always been in the back of the bus for my AR flights but even for the short hops, the granola/yogurt bar + chocolate + drink has been satisfactory.