American Adds 2nd Checked Bag Fee For South America Flights

by Gary Leff

For tickets purchased starting January 28th, 2020 American is adding a fee for second checked bags for flights to and from South America.

Though American has lost its primary partner in South America, and needs to work harder than ever to appeal to customers flying to and from the region than ever before, they’re making flying less customer friendly and more expensive, they say, to “better aligns our bag fee structure across fare products.”

This applies to travel to and from Argentina, Brazil, Chila, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay. It does not apply to Colombia, Guyana, or Ecuador.

Meanwhile customers departing on late flights from Peru, be prepared for a significant inconvenience. With overnight runway maintenance work expected to be underway through July 1, 2020, no takeoffs or landings are being permitted between 1:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. As a result delayed American flights which are scheduled for departure after 10 p.m. from Lima will not depart until 4:30 a.m.

Passengers on AA 918 to Miami and AA 988 to Dallas be warned, since American intentionally isolates Lima as one of the markets to get its worst customer experience aircraft.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. I love how you mentioned the be warned comment regarding flight delays! AA always delays flights from Lima to Miami, always. Its a mess.
    I hope they loose all their customers (me included) to Latam which at least has IFE on all flights to/from Peru.

  4. I took that late night flight out of Lima on AA and be prepared for a less than stellar experience. The airport is crowded and lots of long lines in any event. There were two AA flights leaving the late shift and mine was the later of the two but our flight took off first, albeit late at about 2 am for the 7 hour flight to Dallas. Next time, Avianca.

  5. Another charming enhancement by Parker. “Our customers just lost big, so what can we do to make things even worse for them? Hmmm…

  6. As someone who has taken flights from DFW-GRU and has quite a few South American friends it actually makes a lot of sense. With clothing and electronics so much less expensive in the US than most SA countries coming here to shop is as much as a reason to visit than it is tourism.

    I’ve seen lines in Orlando that last hours for check in on direct flights to GRU because of the sheer volume of baggage. Seeing a family of 4 with 2 small children all with two huge checked bags seems to be the rule rather than the exception. With the focus on D0 I can see them trying to use this to dissuade some people from checking two monster bags…

  7. @Trever Yes! D0 is definitely easier to meet when people who are traveling for the sole purpose of shopping in the US choose another airline.

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