Review of LATAM flight from Santiago to Puerto Montt in Premium Eco

introduction

Hello and Happy New Year 2023 to all!!

Welcome to the third leg in this series of Flight-Reviews.

For years, Chile had been on the top of my travel bucket list and prominent Flight-Report member Pilpintu's beautiful Flight-Reports have always been an inspiration. However, the pandemic had other plans! As the Covid-era restricted us to travel between our two homes in Europe and the US for several years, this trip to Chile would mark our first trip outside of those two continents since 2020. 

In the next two reviews we'll have a look at LATAM's domestic Premium Economy service. This is a relatively new cabin class for LATAM, introduced on the narrowbody fleet on regional and domestic routes in January 2020, right before the pandemic. The concept is similar to intra-European Business class with forward rows having a blocked middle seat. In addition to extra space in a separate cabin, Premium Economy fares also include priority check-in and boarding, more flexibility, a higher checked baggage allowance, complimentary snacks (or meals on International flights), and lounge access on international flights. 

For these domestic flights between Santiago and Puerto Montt, we paid around 50% more than standard Economy fares that included checked baggage. Pricing at 235 USD per roundtrip for our dates, it seemed like a decent value for a premium cabin on a 1.5h flight. Since LATAM left the oneworld alliance a few years ago, we no longer have status on LA, so I felt it would make sense to purchase a premium cabin for priority handling in the event of any irregular operations or unforeseen issues–plus, I like trying out new cabins. Let's see if it was worth it!

routing

check-in & lounge

After a restful few hours' stay at the Holiday Inn Santiago Airport, we were refreshed after our overnight flight from the U.S.

The Holiday Inn is very conveniently located right there in front of the Domestic Terminal. It was a quick walk across the street to Terminal 1. 

We arrived at the LATAM check-in area a little under 2h before scheduled departure time. 

Luckily, there was no line at check-in because the whole process was painfully slow and frustrating. The advertised benefit of "Priority check-in" for Premium Economy is largely misleading as Premium Economy passengers are made to print their own boarding passes and baggage tags from kiosks, just like Economy passengers, and then also weight and tag their own bags, once again using a frustratingly slow automated kiosk. The only difference is that there is a shorter dedidated Premium Economy lane between the first set of check-in kiosks and the baggage drop-off kiosks. But because there was no line anywhere, it made no difference at all. An overall unpleasant check-in experience giving a bad first impression of the product–nothing "premium" about the ground experience so far. 

As mentioned in the introduction, Premium Economy passengers only have lounge access on international routes. Being on a domestic route, lounge access was not included with our tickets.

 We entered the Primeclass Condor lounge, located closest to our gate, using our Priority Pass membership.

The lounge is on the small side, but wasn't crowded and had plenty of available seating. 

Plenty of natural light and tarmac views made the space feel larger. Food and drink options were decent for a domestic lounge and all fresh items were wrapped for Covid safety–something that's largely gone away in North America and Europe. 

boarding

We left the lounge and headed downstairs to the gate about 5 minutes before boarding was due to begin. 

There was a children's play area located right at our gate, which was very convenient for our 3-year-old who enjoyed a few minutes of play time before boarding. 

The gate area was well organised with clearly marked separate Premium and General boarding lanes. Boarding began on time with Premium Economy/Group 1 following pre-boarding. 

Our A320 was looking nice and shiny in the new livery! Will it be the same on the inside?

Nope! An old LAN cabin awaited us inside this seemingly freshly painted A320. This cabin was looking older and more worn out than my last flights on LATAM A320s way back in November 2016! (which can be found here and here)

There wasn't even a class divider curtain between Premium Economy and Economy, which I found unusual, and contrary to other reports I'd seen on LATAM Premium Economy. Again, the advertised claim of a "separate cabin" felt misleading. 

I'd selected seats in the last row of Premium Economy as I generally tend to prefer seats in the last row of a premium cabin for additional privacy. 

No such thing on this flight with no divider curtain between the W and Y cabins. 

Legroom is tight on aircraft with these older cabins considering that only Economy was sold on narrowbodies before 2020. The newer cabins, as we'll see on the return flight review, are much more spacious up front. 

Despite the tight row spacing, the seats themselves are well-padded and comfortable. There are 2 under-seat AC power outlets for ever row of 3 seats. 

Blocked Middle seat in the Premium Economy section, have a table that folds down from the seat-back, much like European Business class. It's a convenient place to store smaller bags and the table gives extra space to place drinks and snacks. 

Ashtrays in seat armrests! I don't think I've seen that in at least a decade, if not two! No, no, you still can't smoke on the plane–but if you do…there's an ashtray!

The view from 3A.

LATAM narrowbodies are equipped with an on-demand streaming entertainment system branded "LATAM Play" 

There's a good amount of content and the system is available from gate-to-gate. 

Still tired from 2 long flights, my son fell asleep towards the end of boarding. The extra space in Premium Economy allowed him to stretch out and rest. 

the flight

Boarding wrapped up on time and the door was closed a few minutes early. 

We pushed back from the gate on time.

And we were off after a short taxi time and no wait.

On takeoff, there was a nice view of one of the ex-Norwegian 787s acquired by LATAM last year, after the demise of Norwegian's long-haul operations. 

Terminal 1 on the left and Terminal 2 on the right. 

The Santiago urban area is gigantic and stretches for miles and miles–it takes a good 10 minutes to reach more rural areas. The Chilean capital is in a truly beautiful setting with such massive snowy mountains to the east and surrounded by lush farmland. 

The LATAM Play entertainment system has a map feature, but it's not very detailed…

With such breathtaking scenery flying along the Andes, it would be nice to have more details like the names of volcanos, lakes, and other places of interest.

Pilpintu can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is Descabezado Grande on the left and Cerro Azul on the right. 

Zooming in does not give more details than certain city names. Too bad!

A snack was served about 20 minutes into the flight, consisting of crisps, granola bars, or chocolate chip muffins–each passenger was allowed two items. Beverage choices were surprisingly limited to coffee, tea, sodas, and juices. I was surprised not to have any Chilean wines on offer being that Chile is one of the biggest wine producing countries in the world! 

Volcán Antuco and the beautiful Laguna de la Laja.

It got progressivley cloudier as we flew further south towards the lake district, so no views of majestic Volcán Villarica from above, sadly. 

Just some clearing over Lago Ranco.  

I made sure to wave towards the west to Pilpinto as we fly past his hometown of Valdivia ?

Just a sea of clouds at this point–missing so much beautiful scenery. But I'll see it up close so no worries!

We begin descending into PMC over the massive Lago Llanquihue, the second largest lake in Chile.

Some breaks in the clouds over the lake allow for some sneak peeks or volcanic peaks. 

A sliver of Osorno is visible above and Calbuco below. 

It's sunny over Puerto Montt, but rain storms are moving in…

We run into rain as we head south over the bay before turning back north for landing. 

arrival

We landed at PMC on time. There was only one other commercial jet at the terminal. 

First impression of Puerto Montt airport was very good–bright, open, airy and modern terminal. 

Welcome to the Lakes Region!

Baggage delivery was quick, and there was no wait at the rental car counter at this quiet hour. A nice and pleasant arrival experience!
 

Tourism bonus

There will be tourism bonuses in the next three reviews. Photos and video don't do justice to the true beauty of Southern Chile, but feel free to check out the bonus section below ⬇