Can any one advise on what is the difference between flying on LanPeru vs. Air Continente?
My wife and I are trying to book flights within Peru: Lima -> Cusco -> Puerto Maldonado -> Lima.
I noticed that there is a significant price difference between these 2 airlines, LanPeru being more expensive?
Anyone know why this is so?
thanks,
RC

I've flown both within Peru and they were perfectly fine. LanPeru seemed a bit more professionally run, and might be more expensive because it has a bigger international route network. It's part of the whole LanChile consortium, which now serves as the international airline of Ecuador and the Dominican Republic as well. (That's just a guess for the reason. But AeroContinente was okay too.

I just got home from Peru. My travel agent originally had us on Aero Continente but later told us there were some safety concerns with this airline (rumor was that some of the maintenance records were forged!) so she put us on Lan Peru instead.

We only flew LanPeru but that is not to say the other airline was not good. We had great service. I really liked the airline. We had no issues. Even got frequent flyer miles. I bought my tickets directly from the Lan office in Miami and they mailed them to me. However, this option is more expensive. Other options are obviously, use your U.S. travel agent. Or, buy tickets online with lan peru, but this only works if your point of departure in U.S. is one of their main terminals and you can pick the tickets up. I remember lax or Miami. Or, some hotels in Lima will book for you and you pick up when you arrive. I actually think that is the cheapest option.
I have heard that LanPeru was more reliable as far as not bumping people or cancelling flights. But in either case get to airport early. Probably they are more expensive because they are international links.
I think you are probably okay with either one.

Lana123 is right: If you belong to American Airlines' AAdvantage program, you can get frequent-flyer miles with LanPeru since it's part of the One World alliance, as is American.

Chik:

If you a US citizen, please note that the US government issued a ban on June 1, 2004 restricting all Americans from flying on Aero Continente. It's not a warning -- they've made it illegal to fly the airline. Here's the posting:

http://www.tandt.com/travel_update.asp

Aero Continente was just grounded because of non-payment of insurance. Lan Peru is honoring their tickets if available, but travelers may want to switch in advance. We lucked out and switched to Lan Peru a couple weeks prior to the announcement