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.

behuman

You made the point exactly OpenSky, LATAM is a disgrace but still the best option within Latin America with a decent PE and pleasant crew onboard. Also I think they take at least safety seriously, bathroom desinfection since Covid is exemplary.

When it comes to ground services (including ticketing) and lounges it is for masochists. btw: ? anyone experience with the new "premium" check in area in SCL and the lounge ?

Semphyra

To be fair LATAM for quite some time had the policy of not allowing to checks bag through with different tickets operated by LATAM and they only had to honor this for Oneworld connections since it was a requirement for the alliance. Since LATAM is not part of Oneworld since 2020, I am not surprised they don't cover this topic anymore for new agents.

But yes, I am surprised they are letting junior agents operate the priority counters. This almost happened to me in SCL, also the agent didn't seem to have a lot of experience with pax entering the US with a Visa (and without an ESTA)


I am afraid they are hard pressed to meet their KPI of 0 minutes delay. Even at the expense of the traveler's time


In the priority check-in lanes there was quite a mess with a big queue. I believe the extra documentation (like vaccine records) delayed the check-in process significantly, luckily I verified my documentation in advance and I was able to skip the line. You can do this via WhatsApp up to 6 hours before departure https://www.latamairlines.com/us/en/...p/ready-to-fly

The lounge had a beautiful design. There is a separate section for Business & Top Tier; Platinum flying on Economy; and another for the Santander alliance. I was only able to enter the latter and it was quite decent, I had a salmon salad and a Haggen Dazs ice cream while I was able to wirelessly charge my phone on the table. Sadly they don't have an alcohol license yet.

The food offering for the other two should be better.

michael1023

I mean to me they are a dead airline since they stopped flying from JFK to Guayaquil,

OpenSky

The check in cut off at JFK is 90 minutes. For most carriers its 60 minutes ( in fact all) . If you show up boarding 30-20 minutes before departure at the gate, they start going crazy and lecturing people. They will send their staff to the terminal to start harassing people to board.

Since the ground staff were mean to me and unhelpful, I took it upon myself to show up at the gate 20 minutes becfore departure - my own form of revenge to them. Even the pilots will want to leave early! Its gone out of control

This wouldn't be so bad - if their planes had wifi ( which not all do)