Hi Everyone and thanks for clicking on my latest trip report.

Sydney – Auckland
LAN Chile LA800
Sunday 16 May 2010
ETD: 0955
ATD: 1008
ETA: 1515
ATA: 1516
A340-313X Reg: CC-CQC

It was time for another business trip to beautiful New Zealand, and after looking around online, the cheapest fare was with Emirates, but I had just flown them to Bangkok and return, and for $5.00 more I could fly with LAN Chile. With it unlikely that I will be going to South America in the near or medium-term future, this seemed a good opportunity to try an airline I had never flown before. I had read some reviews on here about LAN and talked to other people about them and to be honest, I heard mixed reports – they were very hit-and-miss. As the flight to Auckland was only 3 hours, I decided that if it really was that horrible, at least it was only a short-haul venture and I would have to endure it for too long. Finally, I love travelling on A340’s – particularly as they only have two seats on the side of the aircraft – and with a lot of airlines seeming to be phasing these out, it might be one of the last times I get to fly on this lovely aircraft.

My Dad kindly gave me a lift to the airport in Sydney on the day of departure. I had actually managed to get a cheaper airfare booking the flight as a code share on the Qantas website. When I tried to check in the night before, I found out that you cannot check in for code share online – only for flights operated by QF metal. This wasn’t a problem as I had been able to pre-request my seat and had chosen 30A. Mainly because it was behind the wing, and there didn’t seem to be a seat behind it on the seat map, so I could keep my seat reclined for the whole flight. (I’m a considerate traveller and always put my seat in the upright position when it’s mealtime to try and make things easier for the person behind me). It later turned out that there was a seat behind me, so I don't know what the seat-map was doing on the QF website!

I checked in at Row B and it was very quiet. The QF check in agent was friendly enough without being overly cheerful and issued my boarding pass for 30A. He said the flight was full from AKL to SCL but quiet from SYD to AKL. With any luck the seat next to me might be free for the flight ahead. (It turned out it wasn't that quiet at all, but it worked out ok for me).





It seemed quiet out at the airport, for a Sunday at any rate, but I wasn’t going to argue. To my eyes, most of the renovations seemed to have been completed now, and the airport is easy to navigate.
Immigration and security was a breeze and I was through in about 3 minutes flat. The cynic in me noticed that after clearing security you pretty-much have to walk THROUGH the duty free shops in order to get to the gate areas. I needed a new car transmitter / charged for my iPhone and stopped to look at these. Sydney Duty Free wanted $109.00 when I could get the same thing at Dick Smith or Big W (2 retail stores here in Australia) for $98.00 so I definitely wasn’t going to buy it here.







After a quick stop at the after-shave section for a quick squirt of some nice Armani yes – tight arse, I know, but I forgot to put on some after shave before I left home!) I made my way through the terminal upstairs to the QF Business Lounge. Their new public bar areas and food and drink areas on the way seemed quite modern and attractive.
I wasn’t overly impressed with the QF Business lounge to be honest. Assuming that this is the “flagship lounge” for international departures from Australia, I found it a little bit drab and boring but I guess it served its purpose well enough. So many people have QF Club membership these days that the clubs feel more like a departure gate waiting area rather than a “peaceful oasis of quiet and calm” which their marketing departments would have you believe.





The only hot food on offer was porridge (oatmeal) and toast, if you want to include that as hot food. I still had a couple of hours to wait, so switched on my laptop, answered a few emails and had a little bit of food while I worked away. I then looked at a couple of old trip reports I had found on LAN’s trans-Tasman service and saw that the food wasn’t overly abundant on this sector, so, just in case there hadn’t been a revamp of the catering offered, I got a bowl of porridge to fill me up prior to leaving the lounge.









Also, the view from the QF Club wasn’t exactly great for spotting as you can see from this pic!



A boarding call was made for the LAN flight to “Santiago” (nothing mentioned about Auckland whatsoever) so I picked up my cabin bag and made my way downstairs and along to gate 30. By the time I got to the gate most other passengers had boarded and I pretty much walked straight on to the aircraft. (No chance for pics of the aircraft from this gate either).



There was a friendly greeting from 2 crew at the door who welcomed me on board by name and instructed me to turn right. A couple of crew were positioned along the cabin who also smiled and greeted me with genuine warmth as I made my way down the aisle.

I got to my seat, 30A, and there were two people sitting in my seat. One of the cabin crew must have seen me double checking my boarding pass and immediately came to assist. It turned out that the people sitting in my seat were actually supposed to be in row 35 A and C. Not being mean, but I have never been able to understand how often people can’t match up a boarding pass and a seat number. If you’re “one row out”, that’s understandable, and can happen, but five rows?!

Anyway, the scuttled off to 35 A and C and I “made my nest” in 30 A. As it turns out there was no one sitting next to me. There were eight spare seats in Y class on this flight and one of them turned out to be next to me – excellent!
I thought the inside of the cabin looked great – fresh, clean and welcoming. Rows of dark blue seats alternated with rows of purple seats – I found the atmosphere calm and relaxing. The carpets looked new and fresh. I’m not sure how long LA have had these A340’s, but I got the feeling they had recently been refurbished to equip them with AVOD and new seats etc. Does anyone know if LA bought the A340’s new or they came second-hand from another carrier?
I noticed in the in-flight magazine that they only had 5 of these aircraft and many more 767’s. It will be interesting to see if they keep the A340’s or get rid of them for something such as a 787 in the future – again, maybe someone can enlighten me on this.







The AVOD screen was a good size, and, as shown in the customary leg-room shot, seat-pitch was fine and I would have been happy with this had I been travelling on a long-haul sector. There was an AVOD control box on the floor, but it was reasonably well tucked out of the way and didn’t affect me too much.







The pillows were a standard economy style of pillow, and the blanket was a lovely shade of red, however, the fabric of the blanket felt quite strange and “scratchy” to the touch. As the cabin was quite warm on this flight I didn’t need it anyway. I think that this is the first A340 I have been on that didn’t have individual air vent controls. I like to have these, and whilst I know most 777’s that I have been on (apart from Emirates it seems) don’t seem to have them, most A340’s I have been on do have them, so it surprised me a little to see no air vent’s on this LA bird.



Boarding was completed and I took a photo of the seat pocket contents – safety card (of course), in-flight magazine, in-flight entertainment guide and in-flight duty free guide. For the record, the range in the duty free guide was huge – one of the biggest I have seen on any airline. The “theme” of in-flight entertainment and magazines on LA seems to be “IN” as you can see from the covers in the photos.









My initial reaction to the controller was that it was quite large and cumbersome. As it fitted into the arm-rest, I seem to remember inadvertently turning my light on and off about 5 times during the flight. I did get used to it as the flight went on and I explored the system a bit more, it has to be said.



Upon flicking through the in-flight magazine, I noticed that the map had been printed indirectly, and I had a chuckle at this. I’m not sure how many other people would have picked it up other than an a.netter!



Headsets were handed out, and they were the “over ear” type, not the “over the head” type, so I didn’t think they would be that comfortable. I use my own nice headphones with I fly as they come with an airline adaptor – these headphones are one of the best travel purchases I ever made!



We seemed to wait for no particular reason for about 10 minutes after scheduled departure (with no announcements as to why) and then pushed back and taxied out to the holding point at A6 for runway 34L. On the way I took some snaps of a few aircraft including some colourful visitors to our shores. (Apologies for the quality of some pics – the window was a little scratched). I love the scheme for "Our Airline" (the old Air Nauru) which is using this ex-America West 737-300 these days. Australian rego too - VH-INU).

The in-flight supervisor welcomed us in Spanish and then English and then the safety demonstration was played in Spanish and again in English too. One thing I noticed with the LAN crew was that their name tags had little flags of what other languages apart from Spanish they spoke. I thought it was interesting to note that they had the American flag on their name tags – I always thought the language was “English”, not “American”, but there you go.













There was no waiting time at the end of 34L and the hair-dryers spooled up and we lumbered down the runway. I was actually surprised at how quickly we left the ground seeing as we had a high load factor, but of course, the slow climb “kicked in” and it seemed an eternity to get any altitude of any significance.







We had some great views of the city on this spectacular day, and a minute or so after take-off, we banked to starboard for about 2 seconds and then immediately banked hard to port. I had visions in my mind of my parents in the front seat on this horrible “driving holidays” as a kid, and could imagine the flight crew saying the same as my Mum used to when chastising my Dad:
“Go left ... No.. not right! I said *LEFT*, you idiot!”

It seemed a strange manoeuvre to me at any rate. We flew to the northwest for a while, which seemed strange for a New Zealand-bound flight, but finally turned around and headed in the right direction – maybe there was air traffic in the vicinity that meant we had to do this.











There was a great vista out the window as we crossed the coast line and headed out across the Tasman Sea on this glorious day for flying.



Looking up to Palm Beach:



I explored the in-flight entertainment system and found it to be more than adequate. Of course, not as extensive as someone like EK or SQ (who is?) but a lot better than a lot of airlines using AVOD. The system seemed easy to navigate and had quite a good choice of movies and TV – both in English and Spanish. There was some great little “travelogues” of 5 minutes duration on certain destinations in South America which I found interesting too.
In the end I watched “Men Who Stare at Goats” and found it ... well... bizarre. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it!





I went to the bathroom, which seemed to have a very high ceiling, and there was the usual hand-wash and body lotion in there as well as some pre-moistened towelettes. I’m not sure why there was a used plastic cup with remnants of red wine in it, but maybe the cleaners missed it in SYD. Anyway, I put it in the bin while I was in there.





Back to my seat, and the friendly crew sprang into action and served the “snack” for this particular sector. The catering was probably the most disappointing aspect of the flight for me. It was ok, and the sandwich tasted good, but on a 3-hour international service I would have expected a hot dish – particularly when the other carriers are offering this on most of their services during the day. Having a roll in addition to the sandwich was a bit weird too, but there you go.





By now we were cruising along at 36,000 feet above the Tasman Sea. The captain came on and made an announcement in Spanish and then in what can only be described as a very heavy English accent that was hard to understand.





Along with the snack, the crew offered the usual range of drinks including some really nice Chilean wine which I hadn’t tried before. George, who was serving our section started chatting to me about the wine and asking my opinion on it. He actually seemed really pleased when I told him it was lovely. This then got us talking about other things. He told me that the crew have one night in Auckland on the way over, do the “Sydney shuttle” the next day, then one night in Auckland and then back to Santiago. He said the crew is really disappointed they don’t get to lay-over in Sydney and he would love to go there one day. He really was a lovely guy and told me how I must go to Chile one day and the things I could see and do there. Another crew member came along and joined in the conversation soon after, and her enthusiasm was tangible too.

After a few minutes chatting they excused themselves and I finished the rest of the movie. Five minutes after leaving, the Cabin Manager (not sure what their title is on LA) came to see me and presented me with a J class men’s amenity kit and a bottle of Chilean red wine which was a really nice gesture. I made sure to thank her sincerely as I was genuinely touched by this. She had a chat to and asked me opinion on LAN, and seemed pleased with my assessment. The amenity kit was nice with L’Occitaine products, but some strange things such a shoe horn!





The in-flight duty free came around next, and the LA catalogue had a very large range of goods available. There was a watch I really liked that was $50 USD, and I had seen it in Australia for about $95 AUD, so a good bargain and I snapped it up. Again, the crew stopped for a chat whilst processing the sale.
I finished the movie, had another wine that was offered and found the seat to be very comfortable in all honesty. Soon we passed the coast of New Zealand and started out decent into Auckland.







We made an approach over the city with some great views of The Sky Tower and the Harbour Bridge (not the real one – that’s in Sydney!) and then over the harbour. We passed over a couple of islands – maybe Rangitoto and Waiheke? Maybe some Kiwis can help me out when they’ve seen the pics.











We then started to turn around and head for an approach on runway 23L. By the way, can anyone tell me what this rubber-looking thing is on the rear side of the wing?


To me, the flaps didn't extend as far as they could have - they seemed to have "a bit more in them", so I guess the flight crew decided a landing with full flaps extended wasn't necessary.







Touchdown was wonderfully soft, and I snapped a few pics on the way to the terminal. (Including NZ’s 767 with