michael1023

my wife and I are trying to book a nonstop flight jfk-gye and back in december, but it looks like all the non stops are gone on LATAM...anyone else notice or hear anything? thanks

berlinflyer83

I noticed the same thing. XL1439 is unbookable. My husband and I are booked for Dec 23, and our booking looks normal on LATAM's web site. However, we now have a cousin who wants to go. There's no indication the flight is cancelled but we can't book him a ticket.

My husband flew JetBlue's JFK-GYE service last week and reported it was good. They're blocking middle seats, which is nice, but JetBlue offers no business class yet to GYE. LATAM's is usually available for only a small premium over economy, so we usually book that.

michael1023

yeah, i tweeted at latam a few days ago, and they said the nonstop flights resume in January 2021...

I most likely will be booking the jetblue flight, i hope they are blocking middle seats for the rest of the year, our trip will be in mid december...

berlinflyer83

Looking at ExpertFlyer all the flights in December are indeed zeroed out.. there's inventory starting 1/1/21. What a sh*tshow.

They'll probably wait to make any official decision about cancellation, leaving us in the dark until the last minute.

tphuang

so they are going to skip the holiday season when most people are going to be see their families and restart in January when nobody is going home? You have to be a sucker to believe that.

berlinflyer83

I'm a bit confused by your reply, because the evidence shows LATAM has done exactly this. Every day in December looks like this:

XL (LA) 1439 0 JFK GYE Daily
J0 C0 D0 I0 Z0 Y0 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0 X0 S0 N0 Q0 O0 G0 A0 E0


LATAM has zeroed out all inventory. These flights are not full, in fact, spotchecking a few seatmaps shows > 80% seats free.

tphuang

Right, it looks like they have already zeroed out inventory, so they don't intend to fly here during the peak season. If they don't intend to fly during peak holiday season (when even Eastern airline is flying), why would they fly again until at least April or May? Jan to March are some of the slowest months for VFR travel.

berlinflyer83

I see, you're right that it probably doesn't make sense to fly in January. But what is wrong with this airline? They've yet to tell me our December flights are cancelled. They're selling tickets for January that they know will probably get cancelled too.

They're going to make getting a refund a nightmare. We're going to be stuck buying last minute tickets.

tphuang

well, they did file for chapter 11, so that might be a good reason to not book them.

theboss7593

I am a frequent flier on their JFK-GYE route and just among the NYC area-GYE routes I've done them all... So a little insight. They have pushed back the start of service several times now. So I wouldn't even hold my breath on the Jan 1 start date. First it was going to be Aug 4th, then Sept, then Oct 28 all the while JetBlue was flying the route. You have one other alternate that's Eastern Airlines out of JFK and they offer a business class product but it's literally just a domestic first seat, the catering is non-existent (think tv dinner) and it's a fly by wire airline that has a fleet of 1 (maybe 2) so your at the mercy of the airline. Granted when things go wrong with LATAM good luck. Their onboard service is excellent their ground support is some of the worst out there. You can see my story about LATAM leaving me on the hook for 6K plus when cancelling our flight and instead of putting me on a direct flight that was open at no cost said too bad see that in another thread (thank you AMEX for covering me)

My suggestion is if going direct to use JetBlue (pay the extra $80 for their even more space seats in the front row. (they are comfortable enough for a 6 hour flight, your talking to someone who usually only flies business and they do just fine) book the Window and the Aisle, even during peak flying times over the years its RARE that they will put someone in between you and that's literally the last seat they will fill. (no way the flight is going out at capacity unless it's Christmas Week and even then) If anyone does then you just switch with them for the middle, the front row has enough space that you can get up and walk without bothering the person next to you much.

If you want the guarantee of separation in J fly Copa (with the new scheduling they have a flight that'll get you there by mid-afternoon). 55 minutes may seem tight but you literally walk out of the plane and over a few gates. Avianca has an A330 but the hour is ungodly 5:20am flight to BOG and a 3.5 hour layover. (not sure if the BOG lounge is open yet but if they are there are like 4 of them their COPA is my favorite between COL,ECU,PER lounges) Copa service is very good.

Unless you get a kick-butt price on AA don't bother. The timing on the return is horrific your coming in during peak SA arrivals into MIA at immigration even with Global Entry. Their onboard service is the worst of any airline that serves GYE (can't comment on Eastern never flown it)

berlinflyer83

Did they sell tickets for these flights and then cancel - and do you know when they made the decision to announce cancellations? Currently our booking shows OK, but they've stopped selling tickets. I'm wondering when they might tell us. I've tried asking and they're telling me our flight will still operate (sure, OK).

I feel really dumb for giving them more money. We had flights booked back in April, and it took escalating to the Chairman office at AmEx. I only just confirmation from them that LATAM agreed to refund the flights they cancelled, but they've told us that twice before. The schedule is just so much better than anyone else. We've got a 4 hour trip from GYE once we land.

michael1023

i mean my wife and i were trying to book nonstop via latam, but right when we were about to, noticed the nonstop flight disappeared.

this is for the holidays, dec 16 to jan 1st...got a decent flight on jetblue, both nonstop flights, seats 17a, c for one flight and 17d, f for another

noticed those seats have decent leg room for emergency exit and still can recline since no exit behind us, hopefully the middle seat stays empty

never flown jetblue to gye before, let alone during this pandemic..

do you happen to know when in gye they ask for the negative pcr test, if you have been there recently?

berlinflyer83

My husband is there now. Before passport control is what he told me. There was a 45 minute line, mostly caused by people trying to login to various lab sites to show the results in their phone. Really annoying since he had the PCR test printed and translated. Overkill on our part, I guess, but we didn't want to leave anything to chance, since he was travelling for a family emergency.

They also got some forms to fill out on the plane. The second one is a mandatory quarantine order, I guess to have ready in case you didn't have a PCR test.

tphuang

I wouldn't buy any more ticket with them at this point unless you are a month out and the flight hasn't been canceled. They are in chapter 11. You should not think they will operate this route anytime soon.

SCL767

The Guayaquil-New York route resumes on 11/19/20 initially at 3x weekly:
XL1438 GYE 16:00 JFK 22:35 (Tu, Th, Sa)
XL1439 JFK 00:10 GYE 07:05 (We, Fr, Su)