Aerosur Airline, Bolivia’s only choice for flying inside this mad house.
Written: May 23 '06 (Updated Dec 20 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great service when things go wrong. I can't praise these guys enough.
Cons: You're flying in Bolivia
The Bottom Line: The only reliable Bolivian airline. Avoid Lloyd Bolivia and use these guys as the service is good, and when something goes wrong they will sort it out.
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| travelgall's Full Review: Aerosur |
The Airports
As I mentioned in my review of La Paz, the airport in the capital is so high that aircraft climb to land rather than descend. It had a Burger King, another restaurant; some newsagents and had a very provincial air about it. So Provincial in fact I expected a Biplane to land rather than a jet, and “squiffy” to jump out in his Plus fours after having bombed some rebellious natives on the North-West Frontier. The passenger queues are very long and it is worth getting to the airport in plenty of time. Of course there’s nothing you can do to get through passport control quickly, my border official was like Droopy on Mogadon. There is also a duty free lounge, but they don’t let you into the departure gate until shortly before your flight takes off so you’re probably best to do your shopping in town. La Paz airport is found in the El Alto area of La Paz, which is dodgy to say the least.
The airport at Cochabamba is fairly sparse in terms of stores, but even this airport makes La Paz look small. You have a coffee shop, a few travel agents, military police barracks, a newsagents, bomb squad, hot dog stand, 35 CS gas dischargers, 200 FN Fal 7.62 rifles several water cannon and a seating area. For a further review of Cochabamba read this… http://www.epinions.com/content_227020607108
In Santa Cruz the airports are busier and seem to get a lot more flights than the Capital La Paz. I noticed Varig, American Airlines, Aerolineas Argentina, TAM and the joke that is Lloyd Bolivia use this airport. The place has a Subway (whose staff were lovely to me when I found out that I was a few cents short of my Chipotle Southwest Steak and Cheese sandwich and let me have it anyway). I also bumped into some Mennonite or Amish Aryan Master race poster children with their Farmer Palmer parents in tow. The Mennonites are forbidden from using any type of modern machinery, believing it to be the instruments of the devil. In which case they were perfectly safe, there was absolutely zero threat of them encountering any kind of modern machinery at a Bolivian airport. The airport departure lounge was covered with TV screens showing Music Videos, what was weird was that you got the “Winds of Change” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” – they were all 80’s music videos in English first, then they showed the same video in Spanish. I thought I was hearing things at first, but no! They really were playing Michael Jackson’s bloody awful “Earth Song” twice; at least the second time I stopped the dry retching, as I couldn’t understand his cheese-laden lyrics.
The Aircraft
Aerosur flew the Boeing 727-200, which is an old aircraft but one that I consider pleasant to fly on as they were designed in the days before aircraft manufacturers decreed that passengers must on no account have more room than a battery farmed chicken. The plane’s layout meant that the back of the aircraft was particularly roomy as the aircraft has a total of 9 emergency exits, which didn’t fill me with faith in the designers. If they expect the plane to be cleared that quick you can be sure they expect a fair few of them to stack it into the runway. Obviously there are worse forms of transportation; helicopters for example have wheels, skids and floats attached to them, so that you’ve got a fighting chance.
Anyhoo, the fact that it had loads of escape exits meant there was an acre of room at the back – somewhere I prefer sitting anyway as long as I’m not flying into an airport with a jet-way. This is because they usually wheel some steps up to the back that guarantees I’m not climbing over a bunch of retards carting half their possessions as these morons only ever get out at the front. One thing I noted was that the safety brief said that a strip would light up in the floor if the cabin filled with smoke. The problem was that there was no lighted strip in the aircraft; I guess they got the taped briefing from a plane that actually possessed one.
On the way out I looked over to the Boeing 767-300 that was painted up in Lloyd Bolivian colours with avarice, wishing that I hadn’t been so paranoid and refused to fly with them. The back story of this is that last time I was in South America these guys - Lloyd were on strike, I knew they were dodgy so I instructed the useless people at Journey Latin America not to book me on Lloyd – which they did anyway for part of my journey, but book me on Aerosur. My gut instinct was proved right as the lazy bast@rds at LLoyd Bolivia were still on strike and rioting. The moral of the story is you should usually listen to the little voices in your head (unless they are telling you that you’re Genghis Kahn and you should climb a church steeple with a sniper rifle), as the plane I was looking at will now be in the hands of the leasing company. I managed to get upgraded to club due to the riots on the way back, and I have to say that short of having access to the necessary weaponry to stay and shoot the trouble, getting out of the trouble on a club class seat with a glass of wine in your hand is the second most enjoyable and satisfying option. The interior of the plane was Green and White with a bit of Blue thrown in somewhere; it didn’t look that shabby. It looked like a St Patrick’s Day float, thankfully without the Plastic Paddies of America droning on about an “Old Country”, a nation neither they, their fathers or grandfathers have actually so much as relieved themselves in.
Food and Drink.
The main meal I had was a Turkey and Ham roll with capers and beans. This was a rather eclectic mix of different foods together on one plate. Nevertheless the meal went down pretty well, and tasted better than aeroplane food usually tastes. I also got a pudding with Raisins and caramel sauce. The rest of the food was the usual mixture of Cheese and Ham rolls, but that wasn’t too bad either. Most airlines haven’t worked out that if you freeze bread it comes out as soggy as the front row of a Sea-World crowd when the killer whales are jumping through hoops on a rainy day. They had a really good collection of soft drinks too, which after the misery of being on Adria airlines recently was a pleasant surprise. I can’t believe an EU airline can’t supply a decent collection of soft drinks, whilst an airline that flies in the biggest dump in South America kept em’ coming.
Punctuality
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
Value for money
If patience was awarded in monetary terms then this is probably very bad for money, as all my flights were delayed for every reason from Civil Unrest to incompetent ground staff. However none of these issues were Aerosur’s fault, and as such they offer pretty good value for money. They got me out of Bolivia, which as far as I’m concerned was the best value for money since Oprah gave out cars at her free talk show.
Service
The Stewardesses looked like they had been to a major industrial facility recently. It can’t be possible that they applied that much makeup to their faces manually. They must have used the assistance of some sort of shipyard spray application system, probably with enough power to cover an Aircraft Carrier with battleship grey paint in a day. But that didn’t affect the service. The airline was nothing special in terms of service, naturally they were light years ahead of their opposition Lloyd Bolivia, but I didn’t feel like I was home already the minute I got on the plane. Nevertheless when the chips were down they really delivered. Their ground staff was a collection of absolute martyrs when it came to pulling me out of the smelly stuff. They simply couldn’t do enough to help, which makes this a great airline.
Most airlines would wash their hands when it came to troubles like riots as they could blame the government and the fact that their insurance doesn’t cover this stuff, and it would cost them nothing. Instead they made a great effort even though it probably cost them money. Quite frankly; other than the makeup being an easy target, the stewardesses were pleasant as well, efficient and helpful.
Entertainment
There was very little in terms of actual facilities on board. To be honest I can’t remember if they had an in flight magazine or not, but that would have been irrelevant anyway as I don’t speak Spanish. But on take off the golden parabola’s of petrol bombs being thrown onto the runway made take-off a pretty fascinating time and certainly relieved the boredom. Who needs Super Mario Brothers on your headrest when you escape riots and have a drinks trolley?
Highlights of the Flight
One of the people sat opposite me on the Isle had the back of a head like Herman Munster, I don’t know what kind of Brain operation he had had but the doctors had given him more stitching that a sail factory during Cowes Week, with scant regard to the aesthetics of the work. The Operation obviously hadn’t reduced his sex drive though, as he was reading the letters page of his Porno mag most avidly. I could tell that he was reading porn as I spent half the flight directly opposite a picture of a woman experiencing double penetration. One can only assume the doctors cut open his head with a spade or some other blunt instrument, and stuck it back on to repair his burnt out corneas as a result of excessive staring. He also had the clothes to go with the Frankenstein’s monster head motif. On the way back I got sandwiched between a two fat lads, one of whom was going on holiday to Spain. He delighted on telling me that he found the English dour, unfriendly and not very exciting. A lecture from a person whose country can’t change a toilet roll without going on strike tends to stick in the craw. He lectured me half the flight on the fact that my Spanish is limited to ordering a Beer and asking where I can locate the British Embassy. I then started talking Norwegian and German, and on being greeted with a gormless look expressed surprise that he hadn’t bothered to learn these languages. I then pointed out that I couldn’t be bothered to learn the 16000 past tenses Spanish has, and whether the noun “Cucumber” is masculine, feminine. Pre or Post op-transgender or neutral. There was also a guy who was a shocking level of Ginger with a really (and I mean really) good-looking girlfriend. To be fair I haven’t seen this many ugly guys in one place at the same time since the World Gurning Championships.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=gurning&hl=en&lr=&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title
Due to the total chaos that was the Lloyd Bolivia strikes I cannot thank Aerosur enough. Their staff in Cochabamba were absolutely wonderful and could not help us enough. In particular the blonde yummy mummy who sorted us out with hotels, food and flights was an absolute delight. The airline transferred my flight from the dreadful Lloyd Bolivia for my last leg to Buenos Aires for zero cost. Something they did not have to do. I understand that the staff at Cochabamba were in constant touch with the president of the airline, who personally made sure that we got to our destination as soon as possible.
I can only wish the airline all the best for the future; a future with even more cloudy skies now that the Presidential moron Evo Morales has decided he wants to accelerate the flight of capital out of his country and ruin the economy even more by nationalising the country’s gas reserves. If anything demonstrates the utter stupidity of this idea, compare the privately owned Aerosur with the state run Lloyd Bolivia. I hate the fact that the staff at Aerosur will suffer because of the idiots in charge, but if I were Aerosur I would get the paperwork to re-register my aircraft in Brazil as fast as racehorse with a pound of Habanero chillies up its backside. Because I guarantee that with Lloyd going to the wall, that grade A retard Morales will be after nationalising this airline too. I know I’ve laboured this point, but I study history; and what Morales, Chavez et all are doing the Salvador Allende / Castro populist rubbish that drove the Chilean and Cuban economies to the wall. And whilst I’m not a fan of most of Bolivia, and have no sympathy for self inflicted injuries I kind of felt sorry for them. I found some – and I mean some - of the Bolivian people delightful, and wouldn’t wish economic collapse on anybody (except maybe the French).
Dr Rumack: "Elaine, you're a member of this crew. can you face some unpleasant facts?"
Elaine Dickinson "No".
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
travelgall
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Location: London, Great Britain
Reviews written: 104
Trusted by: 96 members
About Me:
Ex Army Stockbroker who spend all his cash on traveling.
Corruptissima Republica, Plurimae Leges.
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