Which airline to Lima?
 

I'm hoping to fly from WAS (either IAD or DCA) to LIM to visit some friends this winter. Does anyone have airline preferences they'd care to share?

I'll be flying coach and have no status with any airline. I'm 6ft tall and therefore seat pitch and general comfort are important. (I was seriously considering COPA, but have found a couple of mentions - not on Flyertalk - that they have incredibly little leg room.)

Any experiences and opinions welcome! Thanks!

Did you see this: http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=757327

That will probably help out

Last month I flew LAN from EZE to Santiago de Chile and was very pleasantly surprised. Try to get one of the exit rows. I always fly Continental or a Skyteam but may consider LAN in the future and just get the miles posted to American Airlines.

Hope I'm not too late here, but I've flown from DCA to LIM 14 times in the last 4 years, so I hope I can help. All my flights have been in coach class. Your current choices from WAS are either DCA to LIM through ATL, MIA, EWR or HOU on Delta, Continental, AA, or AA/LAN or out of IAD through El Salvador or Panama (I live in Arlington, so I've always used DCA. The IAD flights always seem to have more connections and cost more, anyway).

80% of my flights to LIM have been through MIA on AA. I've also take Continental through EWR and Delta a few times through ATL, whichever had the best price and connection times for that trip. I've been pretty happy with AA in general, but the leg room is not the greatest. Same on Delta and Continental. I believe AA, Delta and LAN now use exclusively wide body equipment while Continental still uses 757s.

The AA/LAN combo ticket (usually available on Orbitz) is a great ticket to get if it is not too much more than AA all the way. You'll fly AA from DCA to MIA, then LAN Peru down to LIM on the red eye flight. The last time I flew LAN, they were using a brand new 767 with a top of the line IFE system that had an endless choices of movies, shows, music and games all on your own personal screen. Also, LAN has free wine with their meals in economy class.

Hope this helps!

Alan

I have flown four airlines to LIM. In order of preference I would rate them as:

1. LAN
2. AA
3. Avianca
4. Copa

Copa's legroom (for the 5 minutes I sat in coach before getting upgraded) was tight. The connection in PTY really was dreaded, though short. In all it just felt like the trip would never end. I did fly in a new Embraer from PTY to LIM.. the FA said it was 3 months old.. it was a nice treat!

Avianca has ample leg room however coming from WAS area, you will have 2 connections (FLL/MIA and BOG). Avianca's schedules to LIM are not the best either.

AA's legroom is a bit better than CO in my opinion. One advantage with AA is that the price of the exit tax is included in the total price. Sure you are paying the exit tax whether you prepay it or not, but often AA's total price is equal to LAN's price, but with LAN you must pay an additional $30.25 upon leaving LIM.

Lan, though I flew them once, was great! The leg room and recline in coach is surprisingly plentiful. Individidual entertainment was a plus. Lan flys 767 from South FL to LIM.

Since you will have a connection no matter what, I would recommend the connection in MIA and fly with LAN.