Review of Austral Líneas Aéreas flight Buenos Aires → Salta in Economy

To the FR staff/moderators: Austral has fully merged with Aerolineas Argentinas since 1st of december 2020. Perhaps we should mark the airline has "dead"?

the magical north: salta, juyjuy, Humuaca

Hello dear flight reporters and readers!

Today I will start a serie of flight reported from my first trip to Argentina at Christmas - but summer over there - 2013.

A good argentinian friend of mine from Paris was getting married and she invited me to her wedding in december 2013 in … Mendoza in Argentina!

I chose Aerolineas Argentinas over LAN because it is part of Skyteam so I could claim miles, and because they do offer a cheaper rate if you buy a package of 5+ domestic routes that makes it more affordable - I staill paid around 1000euro for it.

Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 426
(before the program changed to a revenue-based model) Today you would earn 2XP mile status too

These were the good times when you could choose your seats for free!!  

AT BUENOS AIRES JORGE NEWBERRY - AEROPARQUE AIRPORT

Aeroparque is actually a very old airport, being used as early as 1925 for domestic routes and international destionations to France even with the Aeropostale. This airport is closely linked to french aviation, just like Aerolineas Argentinas and pilot Antoine de Saint Exupery.

The external view of Aeroparque, which is just by the Rio de la Plata and the Ocean.

For once my bird was parked at a gate with a jetway! So no more of Pax Buses!!

Boarding happened very quickly, in both Spanish and English; well with the Argentine spanish which is a different variant than castillano.

onbaord the e190

Aircraft: Embraer E190AR
Registration: LV-CMA
Engines: 2x GECF34
 ge: now 10 Years 
Layout: C8 Y88
Observation: leased 

The seats were clean and confortable, equiped with thick armrest and adjustable headrest with a generous pitch. Not sure why but it felt really more confortable on these embraer 190 than the boeings 737 ot the airline.

I must say for 2013, these cabins were really of avant garde for Europe: IFE, USB plugs and really comfy seats..

IFE during boarding.

The crew seemed nice as they were smiling at multiple occasions. After push back we had the regular announce by the captain the safety procedures explained manually by the crew.  

Take off offered a splendid view on palermo, retiro and the micro centro.

Above 10,000 feets and the service started..

I do remember that the service was similar to that of any flights on Aerolineas Argentinas, I didn't take that many pictures passed this point.

I wasn't really in the mood as it was the first time I was seriously dumped by text by someone in Europe, just before boarding. Not the best memories at all.

The view from the rear of the fuselage, near the toilets.

The magazine review time! So Aerolineas offered a very thick book, with a really comprehensive section on their destination of the month: New York..

One funny thing is that the airline offers a lot of discount for touristic activities.. 

Also on page 3 you'll see that the company used to fly directly to Australia, which is everything but common for a Latin airline. 

And the AvGeek bit… the fleet review..

Look at that 8 A340-300s, and even more rare: 4 A340-200s! 

The rest of the flight was very bumpy as we flew into thunderstorms..

Captain had to attempt 2 landings before we finally touched down. Another thing to remember. 

at salta miguel de guelmes

I arrived at the very small airport and the rental company, Hertz, was still open. 

I will describe a bit more the airport in another report, but for the time being here is what you miss if you have never been in the region.. 

And for the stamp collection!