Aerolineas…The Cattle Car Company

I am still pondering my laundry list of reasons to defame and heap calumny on Aerolineas Argentinas’ head. Yet, this trip may suffice. I recall my saying that one could be worse off than to be stranded in BA…I may have been hasty. On my way home via Arequipa I had to fly Salta—Buenos Aires—Santiago (on LAN Chile)—Lima—Arequipa and the flight to BA got side tracked for two hours to Mar de la Plata airport because of a storm over BA. Now, no other planes passed the hours with us so it did make me wonder if we had a pilot—in—training issue or a real problem. During that whole time, the airline agents never made a single announcement as to times, conditions or reasons for the detour. We, the passengers individually or in small groups had to seek out the agents and ask for their opinion as to why all of this was going on. Anyway, the deviation in plan got me into Buenos Aires too late to make my flight to Santiago.

I am thinking, this is no problem, having called my secretary and being told that there was no trouble finding airplane passages to get where I needed to go. I would get someone to find me a hotel and have a nice steak, be a little out of time in Arequipa but in the end, everything would be handled, a classic case of over confidence. Upon landing, my secretary called and told me that our travel agent said that we should talk to the airline to get them to help because they sometimes have rooms and BA was booked tight. O wonderful!

After getting into the airport, I sought out the Aerolineas’ oficina del Servicio al Cliente. Aside from being a misnomer, it is totally unmarked. I found the barely pubescent, goateed lad there who promptly and unhesitatingly told me, “No, che…voz no viajas con nosotros, conecta con LAN. No es nuestro problema. Lo siento.” He told me that he had been calling for an hour and that no hotels had rooms.

I knew that arguing with a virtual teenager at this point would waste time, and annoy the pig, as the saying goes so I beat feet to LAN to see if anyone there could save me. They made a valiant effort but in the end, the answer was the same, “No room at the inn.” I did discover that there is a baggage check in the airport and for 9pesos/piece/day one can check his luggage in total insecurity. I did that, went to Puerta Madero and had a marvelous steak and came back to the airport about 1:30AM for my 6AM flight to Santiago.

I found a less than comfortable polished, coarse-grained granite slab to stretch out on and slept/thrashed/twisted for a couple of hours and then checked in. The next day was wiped out when and late to work when I got to Arequipa. Aaaah ¡Aerolineas Argentinas, mi vida che!