Santiago to Sydney via Auckland. My husband and I have flown internationally with LAN on three occasions, and each time our flight has been delayed - twice by 5 hours, and once by 16 hours! On each occasion, we have found LAN ground staff to be unhelpful and uncommunicative. On the most recent occasion, we were told that the delay was due to the fact that there were 50 more passengers booked on the flight than the plane they were using could accommodate. The ground staff's attempts at resolving the problem were a display of incompetence, and the whole process turned into an absolute debacle. Although several of the ground staff could speak fluent English, they refused to communicate or make announcements in any language other than Spanish (despite the fact that the majority of passengers on the flight were English-speaking Australians and new Zealanders). This has also been the case during our previous experiences with LAN ground staff. When my husband and I attempted to board, we were told to join a queue of 'rejected' passengers and wait for our fate to be decided. When we eventually reached the front of the queue, I asked that we be allocated seats next to each other. This appeared to enrage the staff member allocating seats, as she pushed us aside and proceeded to completely ignore us, continuing to allocate seats to people who had been in the queue behind us. When we tried to get her to communicate with us, she continued to ignore us, and laughed and joked with a person she was speaking to on the phone. By this time, there was almost nobody left in the queue, and I was becoming extremely distressed and anxious. This only appeared to cause the staff member further amusement. Eventually, my husband managed to get the attention of another ground staff member, who came and took over the computer and allocated us two seats within a few seconds. We boarded the by now almost-full plane only to find that the new seats we had been allocated were already occupied, and the only empty seats were the two that we had originally been allocated! I have never before, as a customer, encountered such deliberate and extreme rudeness, nor such incompetence. I would certainly not recommend flying internationally with LAN unless there is absolutely no alternative.
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