Coming up today, one of the busiest routes in the world in Latam’s Premium Economy.
We took off while the sun was rising, flew 30 minutes west
and landed while the sun was rising. This beautiful little report starts in 15 seconds.
Good early morning and welcome to 4:00am at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão Airport.
My name is Kevin and I’m going to take you along for this short 210 mile flight today.
If you’d like to see the exact fare I paid, how I booked it
and what my next five videos are in queue, please check out the pinned comment below.
Checkin today was- what seems like a pattern for me recently- quick and easy.
This flight from Rio was just getting me to Sao Paulo for my flight from there to London.
The check in agent was very friendly and almost didn’t believe his own information
when he saw I didn’t need any documents or tests in order to enter the UK-
something that had just changed a couple of weeks before I traveled. My flight to London was in
Business Class, which translates to Premium Economy on this first hop over to Sao Paulo.
The early hour combined with Covid protocols- which is beginning to become a lazy excuse-
meant that my top three choices to pass my time: the Plaza Premium Lounge, the Gol Lounge and
Starbucks were all out of the question. So, I settled for some Pão de Queijo which were
delightfully dense as a brick and patiently waited for my ontime boarding to be called.
The flight on one of Latam’s A321s had a whopping 7 boarding groups which seemed a bit excessive,
but I do appreciate how organized the lines were setup. There was never a mob pushing forward.
On board is comfortable, but it’s nothing to be surprised about. Latam’s A321s feature
three classes, or I guess zones would be more appropriate. The first three rows are Premium
Economy. These seats have the middle seats blocked similar to Euro business class configurations and
had a bit extra legroom. The four rows behind it were Latam+ which also featured a bit extra
legroom but no blocked seats- followed by standard economy. For today, I was in 1 Alpha.
This is one of those bulkhead seats where the legroom is restricted but,
with no one next to me it was pleasant enough. We also had some nice individual air vents.
Today’s flight was going to be departing from runway 31
on our way up to 28000 feet for the 45 minute hop to Guarulhos’ runway 9R.
As promised, the sunrise began as we pushed back just about ontime at nine to six in the morning.
Soon enough we were lining up for our departure to the south east before
quickly looping around to a westerly direction. The spool up is coming next.
The sturdy tray table came out of the armrest for the bulkhead seats and was plenty sturdy,
but kinda useless as there was no service on this
short flight. Ports were available though if you needed a quick charge.
We spent a whopping 4 and a half minutes at our cruising altitude before our
descent and approach began into Sao Paulo from the east.
Despite the dirty windows, this was one of the more beautiful approaches I’ve had recently.
By the way, if you enjoy this video so far, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe and click the bell
to keep up to date with my twice weekly videos. Also, if you enjoy longer format take off or
approach and landing videos- or perhaps you fancy a city walk or two, please feel free to check out
one of my two new channels. Links to both are in the description below. Many thanks in advance.
We landed and quickly made our way to the gate and I made my way to the Pullman airport hotel
for my 17 hour layover. Yes, I know that sounds absurd considering there are over 60 flights
per day between the cities, but this was the one and only combination of flights that got me the
great deal on the trip to London, so, it’s worth the wait. If you also have a long layover here,
I can recommend the Pullman in as far as, it serves it’s purpose.
The rooms are dated but functional, the hallways look like something out of a Lifetime murder
mystery but the common areas are all surprisingly updated and fresh- plus they have a pool.
Alright, that’s all there is to write today so let's get into the Flip Flop Score.
For a flight this short, I have to admit, scores don’t really serve that much of a purpose.
It’s kind of like scoring a bus ride. It is what it is and it got me to where I needed to go
comfortably and safely and I’d have no hesitation doing it again on Latam. I hope you did enjoy
this video and found it useful. If you did, please like the video and subscribe for two
new flight or hotel videos each week. You can probably guess what’s coming up next.