Flight Review: LATAM Airlines domestic Economy Class A321
The aircraft in this picture (an A321neo) is not the one in which I flew (a regular A321)
Flight#: LA3698
From: Sao Paulo - Guarulhos (GRU)
To: Rio de Janeiro - Galeao (GIG)
Flight time: 1h
Aircraft: Airbus A321
Continuing with our series of LATAM Airlines flight reviews, this time is the turn of one of the narrowbody aircraft in its fleet, the A321, on a Brazilian domestic route, the trunk service between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Unlike the preceding Transatlantic service, this flight was on Economy Class, not least, because LATAM Airlines operates its A321 fleet on a single cabin configuration, with some seats offering some extra space.
The flight were courtesy of LATAM Airlines. All opinons are my own.
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The Cabin and Passenger Experience
As mentioned earlier, LATAM’s narrowbody fleet doesn’t have a segregated business class cabin (even if there is a very subtle physical separator, which you can see in the picture below), although it does offer a “Premium Economy” service.
In this regard, when it operates flights within Latin America, it becomes more of a hybrid carrier: the actual seats are pretty much the same, but on Premium Economy you get a bit more legroom and a middle seat blocked (you can also see it in the picture below right) in addition to some additional services, such as larger baggage allowance, priority boarding, ticket flexibility and the like.
As you can see these may sound like relatively small perks on such a short flight as Sao Paulo to Rio, but the price differential is not huge either.
Mine was one of seats with extra space (a generous 32”) and this shows (see the picture below), as the knees didn’t touch the back of the seat in front. The seat was also reclinable.
As you can see, the design of these (branded) Recaro seats is rather classic, kind of slim but not like the latest designs in this field. The grey leather upholstery give it also a rather sober look and feel.
A very nice detail is that the seats are very well endowed when it comes to in-seat power outlets, with both dual USB ports and a universal power outlet (not a trivial thing, since there are several standards of power outlets across South America!).
Catering onboard consisted of a snack (a chocolate cookie in my case) and a drink, which could be a choice of water, coffee, juice or soft drink.
Inflight Entertainment and Internet
But perhaps the centerpiece of the LATAM Airlines short-haul experience is in the digital domain and the airline makes a good effort to make this known to passengers.
The LATAM Play IFE platform, which we had already seen on long-haul business class, is also available in the narrowbody fleet, augmented by proper internet connectivity.
It is quite remarkable that LATAM started its wifi rollout on its shorter routes within Latin America rather than the longer intercontinental ones, but I guess there are multiple factors at play here, financial, technical and operational (the widebody fleet, btw, is being fitted with satellite-based internet connectivity as I write these lines!).
As you can see below, there are two major elements to LATAM Play.
One is the “canned” content (movies, series, moving map, etc.), which all passengers can access for free. The other is internet connectivity. Access to the latter is multi-tiered, as it is common on many airlines.
Regular members of LATAM’s loyalty program can access light messaging applications for free, those with certain status have full access. Btw, you can even access your previous session even on a different device if entering your log in details.
But if you are in neither of these two categories, you can always purchase internet access, and here there are multiple options, as well, depending on how much broadband you need and for how long.
Our Take:
Well-rounded product overall, particularly for a relatively short flight. In fact, some features like the LATAM Play platform may even be overkill for the shorter segments, like the one I flew, while others, like the generous and free 12kg carry-on allowance are great.
By the way, if you are considering a trip to Latin America, you may want to check also my flight reviews of:
