Aerolineas Argentinas

Aeolineas Define their Mission as:

"Our mission is to provide aero commercial transportation for passengers in the whole Argentine market and the main domestic and international destinations, thus guaranteeing a service highlighted by safety, punctuality, and quality in its operations. We complement this mission providing additional cargo transportation service." - http://www.aerolineas.com.ar/ar/index_en.asp?pais=au&idi=en&secc=1&subs=1&tipo=C

 

All I can say that they seem to achieve their mission, but not in the way that you would expect. They do indeed provide transportation, it does included domestic and international destination, and their service is highlighted in the noted areas.  Not in a positive manner. 

What they aren't striving toward is providing a service that meets international standards, or the expectations of their clientele.  Don't think that I am speaking out of turn here, take this experience noted below as basis of my opinion.

In a return flight, with a domestic interlude, taking in the range of this airlines services the following occurred with my parents.

Flight delayed out of Sydney.

Toilet out of service for this leg.

Flight delayed in Auckland for 4 hours, most likely to fix the toilet. No information given to the passengers.

4 hour delay resulting in passengers to miss connections in Buenos Aires, no attempt made to make up time in transit.

Absolutely no in-flight entertainment provided on a 17 hour flight.

No immediate assistance given to passengers who had missed the connections due to the lateness of the flight, passengers are sent on a wild goose chase around the airport looking for assistance for an hour and a half.  Alternative given, this alternative however requires the passengers to arrive 24 hours late., and spend time in another country.  Lord knows what would have happened if any passengers did not have a visa for this country.

Passengers expected to pay an extortionist rate for the telephone call from this country by the airlines chosen hotel, a rate that is more for a 5 minute call than most hotels in Peru charge per night.

Flights from Bogota changed to make it longer and more difficult for the passengers (transiting though another country rather than flying direct, losing  the afternoon for the passengers, due to having to be in the airport at 4:30pm (7:40 dep.)rather than 6:00pm (9:00 dep.). Then delaying this flights' departure until 11:00 pm.

Arriving excessively late again (more than 3 hours), making it impossible for passengers to meet their connecting flights, that depart from an entirely different airport. Even though this is a connecting flight, and within the same airline no standard service exists for transferring passengers.  Only a sternly noted letter, that I had the staff in Bogota make up (not a standard thing, this requiring some pleading and bullying) getting my parent some assistance. 

Not assisted at check-in, even though they arrived late due to the airlines fault at an airport that was super busy due to high season.  Only receiving any assistance due to the kindness of other passengers, and the aforementioned note. Finding out that management staff were thought to be hiding from unhappy clients, as no one could find them.  Staff in the airport terminal pretending not to understand English so as to avoid helping my parents, this being evidenced by the turning of heads and shocked expressions as my parents loudly voiced their frustrations with the level of service provided.

Flight leaving the terminal 3 hours late, synergistic inefficency in some form, as if it had left punctually my parents would not have been on it.  This 3 hours does however include the passengers sitting in the plane on the runway for an hour and a half.

Bags not arriving at the destination on the same plane as my parents.  I have no idea how you can manage to not put all of the luggage on a small plane going to a local destination, the amount of effort required to ensure this happens makes it a near no-brainer.

No indication given as to where the bags are, or when they will arrive.  Granted that with large international airports and large international airlines it can take some time to establish this.  This flight however left from a small domestic airport with 1 maybe 2 runways, one would hope that in the 2 hours flight time someone would be aware that the bags were not on the flight and inform the cabin crew, or at least the destination airport.

They still have a domestic and an international flight to make with this airline, and are actually more worried about the service than the plane crashing.

I am astounded at how poor Aerolineas argentinas have been across the board. I am aware that they charge Australians much more for the tickets then they charge persons from Latin America, I am appalled that they would take this extra money they attempt to provided a lower level of service by not ensuring that they passengers are taken care of.

In my opinion this airline is giving a proud nation a bad name, and this level of service is a part of the reason that Argentina has fallen as a world economic power.  Who in their right mind would want to do business in a country where you can't get anywhere on time and your employees spend more time negotiating with someone at a flight desk than your clients?