Flying with your gear on LAN Chile

I wanted to report what happened to me on a recent trip to Chile.
I flew out of Buenos Aires to Santiago and then to Puerto Montt, and has I always do, i carried my cameras, lenses, hard-drives and computer with me in my soft pelican case designed by pelican according to the FAA rules to cary-on luggage.
On the first two flights everything was perfect, and the flight wasn’t even delayed (rare thing these days in Latin America), the problem started when returning from Puerto Montt to Santiago de Chile.
We arrived to the check-in on time, and the flight was with a delay that nobody could tell us how much it was… After some inquiring they finally told us that there was a 2 hour delay, we checked in and now we just had to wait.
After the 2 hours that became 2.30 minutes we finally started the boarding, and as I was the number 3 in line to border, as I always do to be able to put my hand luggage on the overhead compartment without problems. When i was giving my boarding pass the the LAN Chile employee he tells me that my luggage was to big, that the plane was small and packed and there was no room for that luggage.
It was strange that only that gentleman complained, because during the check-in nobody said anything and on the previous two flights also no problems. But I explained him that I was a photographer, that the luggage was packed with my gear and it was designed to fit pretty much all the airplanes that fly commercial, he didn’t seemed to care and I asked to talk to the flight supervisor, who he called over radio and kept me waiting while boarding other passengers.
When the supervisor finally arrived the flight was pretty much boarded, and i showed him my press card, told him there were USD30.000 in gear on that case and I couldn’t check that luggage for obvious reasons.
The supervisor, lifted the luggage and said “this weights more then 15kg, and our limit is 8kg” and said it was to dangerous to carry that item “imagine if the overhead compartment opens during the flight” which I asked so why every were in the world i am able to carry on that, including the two previous LAN flights and the check-in before the flight. He kept using multiple excuses including that the flight was full so there wasn’t any space left and the crew was waiting to leave.
I decided to take all my gear out of the case, so I got into the plane with 4 cameras hanging from my neck, some lenses in my pockets, my laptop under my arm, and with the help of my colleague (a writer) to put minor stuff on his own backpack. So I got inside of the plane, with all the crew and passengers looking and me with a mad face, when I got to my seat and opened the overhead compartment, I saw that it was completely empty. Not even a coat or a plastic bag was inside, which obviously made me get even more irritated and completely cheated.
Because I was seating on an emergency row, I had to look for a somehow full overhead compartment to put my loose cameras and computer, and when I went to seat I was carrying one camera as I always do (including the same flight that had flew me from Santiago to Puerto Montt, that i flew in emergency row and with my camera photographing during both take-off and landing). I told that to the flight attendant which I was said “we only go with the safety rules” and the gentleman seating on my side was asked to give his coat that was seating on his lap also for his own outrage.

So basically I felt cheated the hole time, I asked the names of the supervisor and when I got to Santiago I filed a complain with the airline company, which until today i got absolutely no response.

I decided to write it here, because if your planning to travel with LAN be aware of what might be waiting for you, and be prepared to deal with it. I don’t plan to travel with them no more, at least if there are other carriers with similar prices (which for most destinations apparently is the case).

I wish you all safe travels, and fortunately you won’t have to deal with the same ridiculous people I had to.

best

Joao

by Joao Pina at Tue Mar 25 14:22:55 UTC 2008 (ed. Apr 21 2008) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Bookmark this | Digg this |