Flight Report: Santiago to Montevideo on Aerolíneas Argentinas

As I mentioned in my previous post, I traveled to Santiago, Chile, for work this week.

I flew from Montevideo to Santiago on a LATAM A320, but since it was a night flight, I wasn’t able to gather much material to put together this report.

The return trip from Santiago was on Aerolíneas Argentinas, on flight AR 1283 to Ezeiza, and on flight AR 2392 from Ezeiza to Montevideo.

Flight AR 1283 was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. on a Boeing 737-700, so the day started very early, with the goal of being at the Santiago airport by 5:00 a.m. I was staying in the Providencia area, so by leaving at 4:30 a.m., I would arrive right on time at 5:00 a.m.

However, since winter break was starting that very day in Chile, and they were warning of extremely heavy traffic at the airport, I decided to be even more cautious and left the hotel at 4:15 a.m., arriving at the airport around 4:45 a.m. This is what the airport looked like when I arrived—it was packed:

Lots of people at the airport at that hour

Check-in for Aerolíneas Argentinas hadn’t started yet, and since I had to check a bag, I decided to wait. To my surprise, the only seating area available for waiting (without going to a bar) was this one:

The only seating area for waiting in the check-in area

I waited for about 15 minutes, and then check-in began at the Aerolíneas counters. After check-in, I headed to the boarding area, where immigration and security checks were quite slow. It took me about an hour to reach the duty-free area. As they’d announced, there were a lot of people—including many, many children—and everything moved quite slowly.

The gate for my flight hadn’t been announced yet, so I had a coffee at Brioche Dorée, and then looked for a screen to see if the gate had been posted (it wasn’t showing up on Google Trips yet either).

When I got to the screen, I saw that the flight was listed as delayed:

The flight was listed as delayed (last on the screen)

Checking Flightradar, I saw that the plane for my flight would be the same one coming from Ezeiza on flight EZE-SCL, so I checked Twitter and saw that the folks at @AvionesenEzeiza had posted that Ezeiza was operating under Category 3 conditions:

The delay, then, was explained by the fact that flight EZE-SCL had departed late due to low visibility at the Argentine airport. Since I had a fairly short layover (an hour and a half), I wanted to know how far behind schedule it was, and when I checked the Ezeiza Airport website, I saw that the flight had departed an hour late...I wasn’t too worried—with just an hour’s delay, I’d still make it to my flight to Montevideo.

I stayed near a departure screen, and when they announced the gate—18B—I headed over there so I’d be close by. The gate display showed the new departure time as 8:40 a.m. It seemed really strange to me, because based on the departure time I’d seen on the Ezeiza website, the numbers just didn’t add up...

Sure enough, after a few minutes, they changed the time to 9:00 a.m., and they moved us to Gate 15. We all went over to Gate 15, and after about 15 more minutes, they moved us to Gate 12. By this point, it was already 9:15 a.m., and my connection was starting to look dicey...

Boarding began around 9:30 a.m. It was very disorganized. Although they called passengers by groups, no one followed the instructions at all, and the staff didn’t seem interested in enforcing them either. The plane was at a remote gate, quite far away. As a reference, it took us about 10 minutes on the shuttle bus to reach the plane.

Once there, we boarded the plane, and the situation inside was quite chaotic. There was no room in the overhead bins because of the usual “clever” passengers who stuff their carry-on, backpack, purse, bags, small pouches, and aaaall their duty-free purchases in there without caring one bit. The flight attendants showed a lot, a lot, a lot of patience, trying to fit everything in and putting up with the reactions of many of these people who seem to have no idea how to get along in society...

Remote gate next to a United plane

At 10:00 a.m., we were still at the remote gate, and the plane’s doors hadn’t closed yet. The time for my connecting flight was getting tighter and tighter; it was becoming very, very difficult...

At 10:15 a.m., we began pushback and headed for the runway. On the way, a beautiful British Airways Dreamliner, accompanied by another LATAM Dreamliner:

Although there was quite a bit of fog in Santiago, the takeoff was beautiful, with the mountain range immediately in view:

Takeoff and crossing over the mountain range

As always, crossing the mountain range is very beautiful and breathtaking. This time it was very smooth, with no turbulence at all:

After the descent, the in-flight service began right away—the usual service provided by Aerolíneas Argentinas on these short flights:

While service was being provided, the captain introduced himself and apologized for the delays. I was really surprised because he gave a very detailed explanation of everything that had happened: a departure delay at Ezeiza due to low visibility, a landing delay in Santiago because they were also operating under low-visibility procedures that restricted landings to 10-minute intervals between flights, the assignment of such a remote gate, and complications with the flight paperwork.

He apologized several times and mentioned that we were traveling at the maximum possible speed, with a tailwind, so he was estimating arrival at 12:20 p.m. (Argentine time).

I found the explanation very helpful; it’s always good to have as much information as possible, and although I already knew the delays were due to weather issues—and many people were already speculating about strikes or work stoppages—I think transparency is excellent, and it’s great to know firsthand what’s going on.

Still, my connection time was very tight, so I asked a flight attendant if she knew what happens in those situations. In response to my question, other passengers mentioned that they also had tight connections (several with Air France and Alitalia), and the very friendly flight attendant told us she would look into it. A few minutes later, she announced over the PA system that passengers bound for Montevideo would be accommodated, that they would be guided to the plane as quickly as possible, and that Air France and Alitalia had already been notified of the situation.

That flight attendant was a gem! She was very kind, incredibly patient, and managed to put all of us at ease.

A few minutes later, we began our descent into Ezeiza:

Descent into Ezeiza

We landed, taxied to a remote gate, boarded the shuttle bus, and upon arriving at the terminal, Aerolíneas staff were waiting for those of us heading to Montevideo to speed up the process. We went through security quickly, reached the boarding gate, and boarded the shuttle bus again to get to the plane.

And as we pulled up to our assigned remote gate, I caught a glimpse of Air Canada’s beautiful Dreamliner:

Air Canada Dreamliner

We boarded the plane (an Austral Embraer 190), where all the other passengers were already waiting, and a few minutes later, the luggage was loaded as well:

Luggage being loaded onto the Austral plane

A few minutes later, we were already heading toward the runway, and soon after, we took off over the town of Ezeiza, with Buenos Aires in sight:

Takeoff over Ezeiza

The flight to Montevideo is super short, and since we had a tailwind, the captain announced it would take only 30 minutes. A few minutes later, we were already descending:

Descent over Montevideo

We landed and were assigned Gate 5; at the other gates were a LATAM A320, a Gol 737, an Azul Embraer 190, and the American Airlines 767:

Quite a bit of activity in Montevideo

There were lots and lots of people at immigration going through the “traditional” process, but the self-service kiosks were really fast:

And so this super-long post comes to an end with our return to Montevideo... I hope you enjoyed it!

See you next time!