Flight Cancellations - Chile and Argentina
 

We just returned from Chile and Argentina and we would report that the number of flight changes and cancellations is off the charts. People were held up for 18-24 hours and in our case, they closed an airport because someone forgot to do paperwork for taking off and landing. The closing was for 3 days in a major tourist area. WHAT?? We took the bus from hell to Buenos Aires, 19 hours. You need to be flexible, have a good agent on the ground in South America who can help and speak good spanish!

good advice wise to monitor travel.state.gov

personally ALWAYS insuremytrip.com also wise.

What airline?

Both LAN and Aerolineas Argentina. Bottom line, be flexible.

Were some of the cancellations due to volcanic ash issues or mostly unknown? I thought I was extremely lucky in Sept./Oct. with 7 domestic flights and only had problems with two LAN flights (Iguazu) while the AA flights to the rest of the country were on time or minimal delay.

The flight we took from Puerto Arenas to Santiago was supposed to stop in Puerto Montt, and did not because of ash. They were told to either fly to Santiago or wait. Time unknown on when flights would resume to Puerto Montt. Bariolche is currently closed until the end of December. Iguazu was the airport which forgot to file their paperwork, and left 1000 people or more without flights for 3 days. We heard of numerous people stuck in Patagonia on the Argentina side.

We only had one problem which was Iguazu after a month of flying around, so we were lucky also. But still a 19 hour bus ride to BA!

I was talking to Quark Expeditions yesterday (considering an Antarctic cruise in March) and the agent said they had 4 couples who missed their cruise due to the problems......

I can totally understand the volcanic ash situation raising havoc with schedules, but Iguazu airport forgetting to file paperwork? That's just pathetic for an airport serving one of the major attractions in the country.