TACA Airlines

Flew taca before during one of my vacation trips to el salvador back in 2002,told myself will never use it again since they lost one of my pieces of luggage,had to return to the airport(2hr drive from where i stayed) to retrieve it a great inconvenience hated it a great deal all they could say like always"i'm sorry".
now in 2009 decided to fly to my native peru,they lost my bigger carry on bag that i turned in to taca reps. In el salvador.,how big my surprise was when i found out it never arrived and nobody in taca could determin the whereabouts of it,ran into extremely poor customer service at taca counters near the bag claim area,watched these 2 "employees" wasting their time talking about silly(to be nice) and non-job related subjects while watching me waiting and looking at their faces like asking when in the hell they'll decide to ask me if i needed help?, which it was obvious,many minutes after was asked to give my info to the female rep.decided to leave and when i was called the day after to be told they have found it,much bigger my surprise was when arrived to the airport and noticed that many items inside my bag had been stolen,nobody will provide me with explanations,and when i called the local "customer service" number i was treated with careless attitude from a couple of reps which also sounded like they hated their job(no smile talk reps),i definetely would not fly or let any friend or family member use taca services of any kind,even if it means to pay extra,had also been given wrong information by different taca reps,whenever i made the big mistake of calling the locals "toll free numbers",total waste of time and money trying to speak to a supervisor.need to stop or i will get a heart attack,i feel confident i will find a better airline somewhere.
i will also try to join as many blogs or websites where my voice could be heard and complain about this terrible experince called " flying taca".

TACA Airlines services lot of destinations in Central America, actually their headquarters are in Costa rica, in South America and also 2 in the USA and Toronto in Canada.

I flew with them long distance, but they also have a domestic route in Peru. Here are my impressions after the experiences with them:

-they are the only international carrier that offers the route LIM-CUSCO-LIM. They just have 1 flight daily. I flew with them once. It was ok, but heard about bad experiences.
-they have an ok service on board.
-a couple of years ago, they started to charge for the food even for international flights, but not anymore. Also if you call them 24hrs in advance, they can give you a special menu.
-the seats and the planes are comfortable, at least it was so when I flew from Lima to Buenos Aires.
-sometimes you can find good offers online, but check about the stops and layovers.
-their frequent flier program is a good one, although they don't work with any other airline, but they have good offers for their members.
-the delays are not unusual for them...

A bad experience:
-when I was coming back from Miami, I had to stop in Costa Rica. Well, when I arrived to Lima, my bag didn't. I checked 2 and just arrived 1. They told me it was in San Jose, how!?! I wasn't the only one with this problem. We were at least 12 ppl

HORRIBLE. If ever you get what you pay for, TACA is where it's at.

When traveling in third world countries, airline delays are to be expected. I understand this. Such is life in the third world. But TACA make the experience almost trip wrecking.

Our 6am flight was delayed.

6am: TACA announces "flight delayed 1 hour for maintenance."
7am: TACA announces "flight delayed 1.5 more hours for maintenance."
8:30am: No announcement
9:30am: TACA takes our boarding passes and states they will put us on another airlines flight
11:15am: TACA states their plane is fixed and they give us back our passes and tell us to stand in line for the plane
12:30: TACA tells us that the flight is cancelled and that there is no way they can put us on any other flights.

--odd that they would say that when they told us we could be on other flights a few hours prior--

--Frustrating that they couldn't be more forthright with information so individuals could get any number of the 20 flights to Cusco earlier in the day--

12:30: We run down stairs and get put on a wait list for the LAST remaining flight of the day that will leave at 1:15 with LAN Airlines. Luckily we are one of 10 people who made it on that flight. Had we not got on that flight, we would not have been able to hike the inca trail as our passes were only good for us to leave on the exact planned day (6am the following morning).

To add insult to injury. TACA is less than helpful when it comes to reimbursing money for the plane flights that they failed to provide. You have to go to their office, fill out a form, leave, go back to their office and they MIGHT refund your money... Further the experience for being reimbursed for the money paid to LAN is the same: fill out a form, come back, and they MIGHT reimburse you.

Though they may be more expensive, fly with 'Star Peru' or 'LAN'. They are bigger airlines and are more capable when it comes to accommodating you. TACA had only ONE plane available for use, LAN and Star Peru had several. When it comes to third world travel and tight schedules - go with bigger, slightly more expensive companies... It IS worth it.