LAN Airlines

I agree with Ms Goodwin on 10 April. LAN have a serious issue with scheduling. We have just completed an extensive tour of South America in which we had 13 flights with LAN in all cabin classes. 5 of those flights were re-scheduled at short notice 1 was cancelled at long notice and 1 was cancelled at very short notice (less than 12 hours). 7 of 13 flights cancelled or re-scheduled. I would caution travellers to check with the airline 12 to 24 hours in advance to ensure their flight is actually flying. Ground staff respond to courtesy and friendliness aircraft excellent cabins spotless and everything functions as it should. The cabin crew are pleasant and helpful.

MIA-SCL-GRU-GIG flights on B767-300 wide seats above average recline and tasty food. LAN provides free wine with meals and free headset. Cabin staff professional attentive and friendly. Combined with competitive fares make LAN a very attractive option.

JFK-GYE-UIO and back. Nice flight attentive crew comfortable bulkhead seats which where assigned to me after double Knee replacement surgery. Crews offer charm grace and hospitality. LAN could use a few English speaking staff at GYE changing planes and paying the departure tax was a bit trying since our Spanish was limited. But wherever you travel in Ecuador there is at least one Ecuadorian willing to help a frustrated Tourist.

Auckland to Sydney had to check-in at around 3am for 5:10am departure. The cabin crew were very pleasant indeed and helpful towards older people and families with babies. A reasonable if modest breakfast was served and good IFE. A340 is comfortable and seats with good legroom.

EZE-SCL and SCL-GIG with stopover in GRU. All flights on time aircraft clean and crew friendly. Seating was tight and legroom was just ok for segments of 2-3 hours. Service consisted of sandwiches and free drinks including beer and wine. Overall a good experience. Also contacted customer service once via email and got reply within 24 hours.

I did nine flights with Lan as part of an extensive South American package and found them to be very good. They were far superior to Qantas. While selling as a LAN business class package there are actually no business seats for flying within Argentina or Chile so business is only for the International component. Flight attendants generally did their job very well and were friendly. The pisco sours from Lan were the nicest I had and food was always of good quality. The problem and this is a big one is with the scheduling. LAN schedules daily flights Santiago to Auckland but seem to cancel them quite easily. Our flight on the 21st March was cancelled and I believe a second flight was also cancelled that week. Obviously this causes major inconvenience and although we had plenty of notice we still had nothing else to do but spend time in the Santiago Airport holiday Inn. Some of the Argentine regional airports could have used a third check-in counter going (El Calafate Ushuaia) as there were long queues. A large tour group was allowed to effectively push in front of us at one of these airports which I wasn't happy with.

FTE-AEP via Ushuaia check in long lines very strict on hand luggage weight (7kg) on flight to Ushuaia drink service. On flight to Buenos Aires just a drink and some cookies too little for a 6 hour trip with a high price - disappointed.

Lima to Eastern Island return. Flight crews excellent food good beverage service is basic but enough for 5 hour flight. Lima airport a mess with only 1 bus to transfer to the main building from a remote location.

Sydney-Santiago-Sao Paulo. An uneventful flight with a good crew on board. I was fortunate to have the only spare Y class seat on my flight next to me. Food good drinks good but the wine glasses were thimbles. IFE is fantastic! I needed assistance at the SCL Airport transfer desk and LAN staff seemed a little overwhelmed but did their best to resolve. Appreciated the English - and I tried my hand at Spanish with good result!

Lima-Easter Island-Lima. Lima departure was delayed for more than 2 hours but enjoyed the flight on new clean airplane with large selection of movies attentive and courteous flight hosts. Return flight more than 2 hours late again got emergency exit row seat so extra leg room same clean airplane but irritated crew probably from the previous flight from Santiago. When I approached one of them was bluntly told she didn't speak English.