Latam Airlines - Heads-Up

[ben]

So I've been discussing this with a couple of members on the forum (you know who you are), I decided to post a public service announcement in case this is relevant to anyone else.

LAN and TAM ostensibly merged to form LATAM Airlines a couple years back. I say "ostensibly" because despite the fact that most of their planes have been repainted in new LATAM livery, and that they have a single website and normally a single customer-facing phone number in each region, on the technical level they are still very much two airlines. Separate airline codes, separate (internal) customer-service departments, and completely separate reservation systems.

I am now dealing with a group flying with TAM LATAM Brasil from here to NY via Brazil, and with LAN LATAM Chile the way back. The SP-NY flight they are supposed to take is cancelled, and the system automatically rescheduled them to take the next day's morning flight, which it is now my job to rectify. (Side note - this is why people still book with travel agents). Even on the agency level, dealing with them is a royal pain - the right hand literally does not know what the left hand is doing, and it is not until I prevail on them to look it up using the TAM code as opposed to the LAN one, that they even begin to see what the issue is.

In an ideal world, they would not unify the branding and customer-facing support until the systems were unified as well - or, at least, before they got training on how to see things on both sides. Well, that isn't the case - so at least customers should have this in mind when dealing with them.

This is doubly true when dealing with a reservation that contains both LAN and TAM flights, and the problem is with the TAM flight(s). The agent will very possibly simply not notice the problem when checking on the LAN side of things. Any reassurance that all is well needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ceviche]

I fly LATAM often and you are spot on, Ben.

 

[rioplatense]

And to make the service situation even worse, they are closing their International Call Center in Buenos Aires and laying of like 60 people at once. From now on you will have to deal with very poor standard call centers located in Peru and Colombia, where literally the employees do not know nothing about their job.

 

[db887]

On the positive side, hard to beat sub $500 rt fares from Miami. Competitors have no choice but to fall in line.

 

[Silvie]

On the positive side, hard to beat sub $500 rt fares from Miami. Competitors have no choice but to fall in line.

And service offered by the crew is always the best.

 

[ben]

They are a very good airline in the air.

On the ground is a different story entirely.

 

[Ceviche]

They are a very good airline in the air.

Especially international TAM to US and Europe and LAN Chile to USA.

 

[gostomper]

Can someone explain which LATAM flied Miami to Buenos Aires, is it Latam Chile or Brasil? There is not a LATAM Argentina from what I can tell.

Shoutout to Avianca for being the best airline south of Canada.

 

[ben]

Can someone explain which LATAM flied Miami to Buenos Aires, is it Latam Chile or Brasil? There is not a LATAM Argentina from what I can tell.

Shoutout to Avianca for being the best airline south of Canada.

There is a daily flight with LATAM Argentina between BsAs and Miami. In peak season there are sometimes 2 flights per day.
They also codeshare all of American's flights, so you can fly LATAM one way (direct or via Chile or Brazil) and American the other.

While I never flew them personally, I do know that many clients of mine do not share your high opinion of Avianca.

 

[another]

Can someone explain which LATAM flied Miami to Buenos Aires, is it Latam Chile or Brasil? There is not a LATAM Argentina from what I can tell.

Shoutout to Avianca for being the best airline south of Canada.

Second Avianca, I wish Air Canada was half as good. And all Avianca internal Colombian flights are under a 100 bucks Can.