Other posts about the South American exploration:

American Airlines 777-200 First Class – Santiago, Chile (SCL) to Miami, FL (MIA)

Nao Victoria Museo, Estrecho de Magallanes, Chile – Pictorial Trip Report – And New Thoughts on Who Was the First Person to Sail Around the World

Hotel Review – La Yegua Loca, Punta Arenas, Chile

I  was extremely disappointed to be on this flight.  That is because my intended routing was from New York, NY (JFK) to LIM in business class on a new Latam 787- 9.

This was the start of my long awaited journey to Cuzco, Peru, Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley, Punta Arenas, Chile and Patagonia and it was off to a bad start.  While waiting at the Admirals Club in Charlotte, NC (CLT), I watched the departure time for my flight to JFK become more and more delayed. The four-hour layover in JFK was looking shaky.  I went to the Admirals Club reps for help.

After a lot of searching and some phone calls the agent booked me in coach from CLT to MIA and in business class from MIA to LIM but on a LATAM 767-300.

No LATAM 787-9 and coach to MIA on my business class award ticket – %&*#@!  All the work to get that flight was down the drain.

In MIA, after a long hike from my arrival gate on Concourse D to the departure gate on Concourse J, I had time to cool my jets for a couple of hours in the LATAM Salon VIP lounge

This is a very comfortable lounge with plenty of seating, showers and wifi.

Boarding for the flight to LIM was at gate J12.

LATAM flight 2511 to LIM was my first flight on LATAM Airlines, the entity formed in 2012 by the merger of Chile’s LAN Airlines and Brazil’s TAM Airlines.  Rebranding of the aircraft only began in 2016 and is expected to be complete in 2019.  The 767-300 I was flying was sporting the LAN livery.

Business class seating on LATAM 767-300s is configured 2-2-2.  I was assigned seat 1J, an aisle seat in the first row by the windows on the right side of the aircraft.  There were 28 business-class seats on the 767-300.  Each seat with 74 inches of pitch and 20 inches of width.

Amenities on this flight were sparse.  No amenity kit, slippers or pjs, just headphones and a nice blanket and pillow.  In contrast, later on a shorter LATAM flight from LIM to Santiago, Chile (SCL), LATAM supplied a plethora of amenities.

The business-class lavatory was basic but there were more amenities than in first class on the American Airlines 777-200 I later flew from Santiago to Miami.

The flight was slated to take five hours and 12 minutes to cover 2625 miles between MIA and LIM.

Flight attendants offered pre-departure beverages.  Just after takeoff, they returned with another beverage service.

Then most passengers reclined the seat to full flat position and slept.

Breakfast was served about 90 minutes before landing.

The good news of the fiasco of missing ride on the 787-9 was that at least I still made the connecting flight from LIM to Cuzco.

Final Thoughts

When travel plans are disrupted, face-to-face assistance from an experienced agent becomes one of the most valuable benefits of having access to an airline lounge.  On a day with major travel issues, it can be worth purchasing a day pass to the lounge of your airline or airline alliance just for this assistance, avoiding the jammed phone lines, and having a comfortable place to sit out what might be a long delay.