I went to Peru for two weeks with three friends, flying on Lan between LAX and LIM and on Tans Peru within Peru. Here's a perhaps overly detailed description of our flying experiences, with little or nothing about what we actually did while in Peru.

Here's a page with lots of pictures and a little more description of what we did.

We all met at the international terminal at LAX. The checkin line was not unreasonably long about 2 hours before scheduled departure time, but we heard later from some other people on our flight that they barely made it after long delays in the checkin process. All four of us checked in using the business class line since I have oneworld sapphire (none of my companions have any status on any airline) - they seemed slightly reluctant to check us all in based on only one oneworld elite, but did it anyway.

After getting a snack we breezed through security with no line. After we found the gate I headed to the oneworld lounge with the one guest I was entitled to (chosen by a series of rock-paper-scissors games) to grab some snacks and drinks. We didn't have much time, but managed to grab several handfuls of nuts, bananas, mints and stuff. The lounge is about average for what I've seen in US lounges, although maybe smallish - no substantial snacks, but some crackers, cookies, nuts, and the like, and self-serve booze.

We then took the bus out to the remote gate to board the plane, a necessary procedure that's still mildly annoying. On the trip down the plane was an A340, with 2-4-2 seating in Y; this was my first time in an A340. There was no air conditioning as we sat on the ground, which became uncomfortable. Not too long after takeoff they served a pretty decent lunch (I had no choice other than tortellini, but it was good) and a snack came later (a warm ham and cheese sandwich). There are individual video screens with movies and music on demand and some simple games. About halfway through the flight my seatmate's unit froze as he played one of the games, and then my screen got stuck showing the airshow with Spanish writing. The FA was unable to reset our units, which looked like the only ones on the plane that were malfunctioning. The seats themselves were reasonably comfortable, since we weren't really trying to sleep much. Not a lot of legroom, but enough.

We arrived in LIM at 12:30 am or so, and were greeted by a long, very slowly moving customs line. But we were in no hurry at all since our next flight didn't leave for CUZ (Cusco) until 5:45 am and we didn't plan to leave the airport. After clearing customs we found a food court area to hang around until our next flight, along with a number of other people in a similar situation.

After waiting a few hours the checkin desks opened, and we went down to checkin with Tans Peru (slogan: "As Peruvian as you are.") We had ended up booking flights LIM-CUZ(Cusco)-PEM(Puerto Maldonaldo)-LIM on Tans rather than Lan as we pursued some student discounts that never materialized. Given the choice now, we would have booked it all on Lan, which has a decent website, comparable fares, offers AA miles, and appears to be overall more professional than the other intra-Peru airlines.

With our Tans e-tickets we thought we had plenty of time to check in, but we didn't anticipate the complicated dance we would have to do. First we waited in line to check in. They checked us in and took the checked bags, but sent us to another desk (with its own line) to pick up our (apparently not completely electronic) tickets. Then we had to come back to the first desk to get out boarding passes. And then we had to pay the airport departure tax before finally going through security. Airports in Peru don't include the departure tax in the cost of the tickets, but make the passengers pay in either US dollars (although Peruvian soles are also accepted) as they depart - it's about $4-5 for domestic flights and $28.34 for international flights out of LIM. So anyway, we finally reached the departure gate with little time to spare, despite landing in LIM 5 hours before.

I'll finish the story tomorrow, but here's a quick summary: uneventful Tans flights on a plane possibly older than I am, and op-ups for all of us on Lan back to LAX.

Good info-especially useful as we have booked similar trip for next spring. How long did it take you to get through customs in Lima? We are in business class (took advantage of LAN's fare sale), so I am thinking that we would be faster since we would be off the plane sooner.
Anxious to hear about your op-up on return.

anxiously awaiting the next part of the report

Sorry - I'll get to it tonight, maybe. Catching up on a couple weeks of work and life has kept me busier than I expected.

Sounds like a good trip; sorry that we missed you at SEA Doo VII while you were gone. Eager to hear about the op-ups and I know the photos will be outstanding. ^

Hopefully this wasn't your plane!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americ....ap/index.html

Yikes! We were on a 737-200, and I know I have photos at home with the tail number visible. I'll report tonight.

that's the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread...

Glad you were not on that plane. Peru is high on my list of dream vacaions.

We stood in line for probably an hour or so total, I think. Another flight (or flights) was already in the line when we got there, and we just picked a line without paying attention since we had so much time. Being in business class will help you some because you'll be ahead of most of the people from your flight, but I think it would have made an even bigger difference for us to pick a fast moving line. There were 10 or 12 stations, and some had lines that were moving significantly faster than others.

That LAN fare sale sounded like a pretty good deal. We ended up with a great deal in coach as well, at $394 during a brief sale earlier this year. Overall I was pretty pleased with LAN, and would fly them again if the opportunity arose.

More about the Tans flights (now with added significance):
The Tans plane was a 737-200 in a one class configuration, which was clearly an older plane but not really dirty or rundown - certainly no worse than the typical AA plane. Our flights didn't make me fear for my life at all - Tans didn't seem operationally or institutionally sketchy at all, and it's unfortunate that the plane crashed today - I hope it was just severe weather. I have a hard time imagining crashes like that, with a large number of survivors - it just doesn't fit with my image of a dart from the sky spiralling out of control and exploding in a huge fireball. But back on topic: There was a mix of gringos like us and authentic Peruvians flying to Cusco; the plane wasn't full. The flight lasted about an hour, I think. I'm not sure because I fell asleep as soon as we sat down and didn't wake up until we landed. They gave us a paper bag with breakfast consisting of a package of two small muffins and a juice box - and the bag had a maze on it providing hours of fun.

We got off the plane in Cusco and had to wait for what seemed like a long time for the checked bags to come out - I think the plane had already taken on passengers from Cusco and taken off for its next destination before we got our bags. The baggage claim area had a loud group of musicians in Peruvian garb playing pan pipes, etc, and a bunch of booths for tourist type agencies and hotels. As soon as we stepped outside the offers for taxis or other types of rides to the city came fast and furious. We walked through a few waves of guys and ended up getting a taxi for the four of us for 8 soles - taxis don't have meters, you negotiate a rate before the trip starts.

I'm really not going to do justice to what we saw while we were there, but here's what I have the time to jot down now anyway:
In Cusco we stayed at Hospadaje Los Christales, which we found by walking around - we had no reservations, and the first couple places we looked were full. It was not deluxe, but very comfortable, with friendly staff, breakfast in the morning, and a location a relatively short walk up the hill from the main plaza. We stayed there two nights before and two nights after our trip to Machu Picchu, first in a four person room with our own bathroom and then in two two-person rooms with shared hallway baths, both times for 26 soles a night a person. They also provided laundry service for 3 soles a kilo - we left the clothes we wanted washed in the morning and they were back at the end of the day folded and plastic bagged, and clean even though they were pretty nasty after our 5 day trek.

The first day in Cusco my sleep debt (from the weeks before our trip and the day and night traveling) combined with the altitude (10000 feet or so) to make me dead tired with a bad headache, so I ended up sleeping most of the day and night. I was okay after that, fortunately, even as we went up to 15000 feet at one point. The second day we walked around Cusco and went to see Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo and walked around the town of Urubamba, which was more or less taken over by a market, with people selling every kind of food, clothing, whatever.

The next day we left early in the morning for a trek to Machu Picchu with United Mice. We chose not to take the Inca Trail, which gets about 500 people a day, and instead went near Salkantay. The scenery was spectacular, but I'll let my pictures talk about that (posted soon, I promise - I have a lot to edit and go through). The guides and service on the trek were great; we had three guides who all spoke decent English and enjoyed engaging the group and sharing about the things we were seeing, even though it was clear they had done the same trip dozens (hundreds?) of times. There were about 20 people in the group, from all over the world, including Australia, the US, the UK, and Russia. At first I thought it would have been nicer to have a smaller group, but I had a great time getting to know everyone and was glad the group had everyone. It was a little hard at first to get used to having the guides and porters do everything for us (cook, do the dishes, carry our tents and packs on the mules, set up and take down the tents, boil water for drinking, and on and on), but we got used to it eventually. I think there were probably cheaper options for companies to go with, but we were quite happy with our choice because they were so professional and experienced.

The fourth night of the trip we camped at the campground in Aguas Calientes (aka Machu Picchu Peublo) at the base of Machu Picchu. The next morning we got up to the ruins at sunrise (some on the first bus of the day and some with a vigorous hike up the mountain) to beat the massive crowds that would come later and see the sunrise. After seeing everything there (which I'm sure you can read about many places) we walked back down to Aguas Calientes and got the train back to Cusco.

We had another full day in Cusco, which we used to sleep in, see some museums and more ruins, and shop for alpaca clothing.

After we were done in Cusco we flew on to Puerto Maldonaldo, on a flight that was the continuation of the Cusco flight we were on before. They really didn't mess around with the turn - shortly after the plane landed, we boarded, and right after everyone was on they shut the door and pushed back right away. The flight to PEM was about half an hour long, and had no food service. We reclaimed our bags after a once again seemingly unnecessarily long wait, then took the transportation provided by the lodge we were staying at. I got the impression that the city of Puerto Maldonaldo itself is something of a dusty armpit of a town and not worth spending much/any time in, but there are 12 or 14 lodges in the jungle around there reachable by boat. We stayed at the Eco Amazonia Lodge. We took a lot of naps, saw birds and monkeys, and generally relaxed. As far as I know, none of us contracted malaria or yellow fever (although the mosquitoes weren't as bad as we had been led to believe anyway). August is in the middle of the dry season, so we received no rain, and in fact one of the excursions was altered to exclude a river that was too dry because they hadn't gotten rain for quite a while. It wasn't unreasonably hot though, and the first night we were even pretty cold. After three nights we took the lodge boat back to the airport for our flights back to Lima.

PEM is fairly small; our plane was the only one there at the time. The terminal had a few souvenir shops and fast food/convenience store type places, with one of each past "security," along with bathrooms. The x-ray machine was non-functional for whatever reason, so all bags got a cursory hand inspection. The flight stopped in Cusco and had no service for the half hour PEM-CUZ; the view of the ground, especially of the mountains around Cusco, was great. After a quick turn we headed back to LIM, again getting the muffins and juice. After we landed at LIM we went down the steps to a waiting bus that drove us about 50 yards to the terminal. Seriously, we could have almost thrown our carryons that far, but we had to take the bus.

After claiming our bags we checked in with LAN for the flight to LAX, which didn't leave for another 10-12 hours or so. My friends all checked their bags, and left my bag (a larger, but still probably legal carry-on size backpack) at the left luggage desk right by the exit to the domestic flights baggage claim ($4 a day). We took a taxi to the Miraflores area of Lima (25 soles) and saw some parks, ate dinner, and generally walked around and people watched. A few hours before our flight we took another taxi back to the airport and waited for a while in the same food court we had been in before, before paying the departure tax and going through security.

Inside the gate area is a single lounge, for all the international flights there. It was okay, I guess, from the 5 minutes I spent inside, with a full bar, a few small snacks, and showers available. But no windows at all that I could see. There was also a small computer area, with internet access (I should mention there is a fairly large internet area accessible to everyone near the food court upstairs with maybe 20 terminals and connection speeds much faster than we had in internet cafes in Cusco or Aguas Calientes - also a little more expensive, but hardly unreasonable).

I should explain now that in our group of four, I was the only one with any kind of status or even FF number attached to my ticket, with my oneworld sapphire (thanks to AA platinum) clearly marked on my ticket (boarding zona preferente!). I should also explain that they are somewhat mystified a little bit by my love of flying and a lot by my stories of life with elite status (e.g. the idea that I could buy a ticket to Japan for a stay of one nights and not only actually get miles worth more that I paid for the ticket but be upgraded on one of the legs for no reason is quite mindblowing). We were sitting in two groups of two, somewhere back in coach. The aircraft for the return trip to LAX was a 767-300, configured with one row of 5 first class seats and something like 24 business class seats. We finally went to the gate area and they called up the two of my friends who weren't sitting with me and handed them business class boarding passes - no status, no request, no reason that we knew of. They were quite surprised (but happy), as was I, standing there with my coach boarding pass (emblazoned with "Preferente"!). They were two of about 10 op-ups, based on the number of names they called. So after waiting a little for the gate agents to finish whatever it was they were doing, I approached with my AA Platinum card stuck to my forehead and demanded "Do you KNOW who I AM?!" But only in my head. I actually just approached with the boarding passes for me and my other friend and asked nicely if they still needed to clear any more seats in economy, making sure they saw the status reflected on my boarding pass, and hopeful but expecting nothing. One agent started to say no, but the other typed a little and then tore up my old boarding passes and handed over two new business class ones, prompting the first agent to tell me it was my lucky day - it looks like we got the last two business class seats, because the cabin went out full. I guess the lesson is to ask nicely about op-ups, perhaps when checking in, perhaps at the gate. If they're going to hand them out randomly to no-status pax who have never flown LAN before, why not ask politely to see if they'll do it for you? (If you paid for business class on the special, I highly doubt they'll move you to first, though, partly because there are only 5 first seats on each plane.)

The 767 entertainment is not as nice as the A340 - no AVOD in coach, and less sophisticated systems even in business. Right after take off they gave everyone a 16.9 oz bottle of Crystal Geyser water, which was great because most people went to sleep right away (and no worries about drinking contaminated Peruvian water). I was asleep before we took off and woke up long enough to recline the seat after takeoff. According to the menu there was a sandwich served sometime after takeoff, but I was sound asleep at that point, I think. Before landing they served breakfast, with a choice of an omelet or crepes. I had the crepes, and they were very good. Incidentally, we got two real metal knives with the meal, and they had real curtains between the cabins - I'm sure any of you would have been as nervous as I was with all those egregious security flaws present, and likely no air marshalls on board.

Despite all that, we landed without incident at LAX around 7:30 or 8:00 am (I can't remember exactly). Everyone on the plane got a little turned around when we came to an alarmed door on the obvious path to the exit, and eventually we all just pushed through and triggered the alarm - they didn't arrest all of us, so it must not have been that important. The four of us dispersed after quickly clearing customs, with two going to terminal 1 to catch flights on WN (which didn't even sound that cheap), one going to terminal 7 to catch a UA p.s. flight I got for him using my miles (I think that guy almost gets the whole miles thing), and me going to my car in my company's garage for the drive back to Santa Barbara. The next day it was back to work to finance my next adventure.

Gosh, I didn't intend for that to get so long. I hope it's helpful for somebody.

If I could have changed one thing on the trip, it would have been to bring my wide angle lens for my camera, and if I could have changed two things, it would have been to take LAN instead of Tans for the flights to CUZ and PEM, but those are pretty minor things, I guess.

I looked through my pictures, and all the ones of the Tans Peru plane we took have the tail number obscured, so I don't know if we were on the doomed plane.

Very useful info--and it wasn't too long.
I have already booked our intra-Peru flights on LAN. My husband saw the CNN report and freaked out, but I assured him that LAN is from what I can tell the best airline in S.A. He has calmed down a bit. I made sure our tickets intra-Peru where in a class which gives us AA miles which helped too.

Did you take any shots / medication? My mother got very sick from her trip to the Amazon.