The nightmare of travelling with Viva Air Peru

Saturday 14th October 2017, finally the day had arrived for me to go on one of my most awaited trips, since for the first time I was going to travel with my brother and my mum together, but due to various things in life it turned into one of my worst nightmares. I don’t usually write negatively about my travel experiences but I think that this could help to know which services to avoid when you’re going to use one of Viva air Peru’s services.

Happy about low-cost options in Peru

This year the arrival of a low-cost company called Viva Air, the same as one that already operates in Columbia as “Viva Columbia” was announced with great fanfare. The interesting thing about this low price party was that they were also going to arrive in Peru for the first time and one of the stars of this new type of offer was Viva Air. They started with good publicity, the media was talking about nothing but this low-cost service for Peru’s commercial skies, in this way connecting different destinations so that for the first time in history flying would be much cheaper than taking an inter-provincial bus.

Viva Air was welcomed with open arms into Peruvian skies, the media – equally on the radio, television and in newspapers – were advertising it’s mind-blowing promotions that were going to be launched, and it was because of this that whilst talking to one of my friends I had the idea to books tickers in April to be able to go into the wilderness together with my mum and younger brother, who had never been on an airplane before. I wanted him to live this experience with me and at the same time be able to spend a few days together.

No hold luggage

Viva Air Peru came to revolutionise Peruvian skies. One of the things about travelling with low-cost airlines is that they don’t let you take any hold luggage for free, but if you’d like to take one you must pay an additional charge in order to validate this extra service. One of the disadvantages therefore of travelling with a low-cost airline it that you can’t take any hold luggage for free, but what you can take is hand luggage which mustn’t weigh more than six kilos per person.

Buying the ticket

One of the things I had to do when I decided to buy the ticket was to look for a credit card in order to be able to pay from where I was to be able to buy the ticket from Lima to Iquitos. Due to my bad luck I still hadn’t made the purchase since I didn’t have a credit card. I had booked the airfare for 110 dollars for two adults and one 9 year old child, so the journey was turning out to be quite cheap considering they were three return tickets, no refund or exchange and with a journey in October.

At the time I didn’t know what to do, so one idea I had was to contact one of my best friends who was living in Lima so that she could lend me her credit card and therefore I could buy the ticket for this much awaited trip. My friend answered my phone call and it was then that I could send her the money by Western Union so that she could pay for it and also help me with the buying process of the ticket to the jungle. My family didn’t know Iquitos and I wanted them to leave with a good impression of their first trip to the jungle and even more so if this was going to be a surprise for both of them. Finally my friend helped me with the purchase and the journey was planned from Saturday 14th October to the 17th October 2017.

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Changes and more changes

When I booked the ticket I bought it with the intention of going on Saturday morning and returning on Tuesday morning and this was supposed to be my itinerary. Unfortunately Viva Air Peru had begun to make changes, changing the flight time to midday and the return to Lima to 18:40 in the evening, which also came with another change as it included a transfer at 21:40 at night.

At the time of these changes I was in Italy and was getting messages via e-mail, which indicated that there would be a modification and that due to this, if I wanted, they could change the flight or equally give a refund if I wanted. Since my trip was still a while off, I met with my sister so that she could help me to make the change. However life can sometimes throw in surprises that you’re supposed to make the most of, which I mentioned because then I had the great idea of asking my little brother whether he wanted to travel or not. His response was undoubtedly going to be positive, so we had to think things through anyway for the 14th October when we would be travelling in the middle of a time where my health was suffering a little due to the change of climate, since I had arrived in Lima recently on the 1st October and was going to spend two weeks there before starting to use Viva Air Peru’s service to head to the charming city of Iquitos, which I was reading more and more about to be able to act as a guide for my family on this weekend escape.

Illness on the horizon

As I mentioned, I had arrived in Lima on the 1st October because it was becoming more and more difficult to adapt to what used to be daily life for me. Although it seems funny, one of the things that affected me despite it being spring there was the climate: I was very cold in my house in Peru and needed to be able to use the heating, therefore I couldn’t see a way of being able to get better since stomach aches, vomiting and fever were part of my daily life.

Furthermore, my mum was working making cakes because this Saturday she had to deliver a cupcake order and she was going to struggle to finish it all on time, so there was nothing else to do but to continue pushing on so that she would have the time and the fortune to travel. I wanted her to have some form of relaxation from this work, to be able to take a break from her hectic day to day life and to give her the luxury of having the holiday she deserved.

The day arrived, time to go

The day to begin what promised to be one of the most unforgettable trips was fast approaching. My mum on the one hand found herself with a flu that wouldn’t leave her alone, whilst I too was starting to get a bit of it. The only one who wasn’t ill was my little brother so we had to go. There we were, ill and going on this holiday that was already very difficult for us.

We did almost everything at the last minute, since I had to go to a shop to print our boarding passes as well as prepare the travel bag. I did all of this hardly one hour before having to leave directly for the airport. Fortunately our house is close to the airport to it wasn’t going to take us any more than 15 minutes in a taxi to get to the airport from our beloved home.

My mum was almost ready to hand the cake over to her client as it was ready to be rent, and she too had to prepare herself to leave the house in less than 20 minutes to leave with us. My little brother was already ready and excited to finally be able to go to the Jorge Chavez International Airport. Once my mum was ready, we decided to leave at lightning speed to take a taxi that would cost us 10 sols since we’d previously agreed to pay in cash, and that would leave us at the outside gate as it was unable to enter the carpark as it didn’t have access, which we weren’t worried about since all we wanted was to arrive at the airport to be able to make our trip and fly directly to our jungle destination that we were so eagerly awaiting. My brother was more excited than anyone since, as I said, it was his first time on an airplane and the excitement was taking over him ever since we left home.

Check-in at Lima airport

We had to have arrived at the boarding gate around 18:40 and we’d arrived in the airport at exactly 17:45 so time was against us to be able to catch the plane. It wasn’t a problem since we didn’t have hold luggage so it wasn’t necessary to do the airport check-in as we had already done it in advance at home in order to be more relaxed at the airport. Once we were there we didn’t have any way of seeing a screen that showed the gate for the flight that would take us to Iquitos.

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What we actually did in this time was go through immigration and through security, where everything happened as usual: removing electronic items and taking off any item of metal so that it could go through a scanner, so once we had done this we could then breathe a sigh of relief that we weren’t going to miss our flight to Iquitos. We were already in the boarding area and what we needed to find out was which gate the plane would leave from. My brother, who didn’t know this part of the airport, stayed looking around the souvenir shops that were there whilst, on the other hand, I stayed watching the screen for our much awaited flight with Viva Air Peru.

Reserving accommodation

I did all of this with one night to go until the day of travel. I started to search the internet for cheap accommodation and it was then that I got in contact with one of them who, luckily, would let us make a reservation without a credit card which suited me since I didn’t have one and I didn’t want to mither any of my family members who had one. All they asked was if I wanted to order a taxi that would pick me up from Iquitos, the cost of which would be 20 sols to be paid directly to the driver. I told them that there was no problem and to reserve this transfer to ensure that nobody would be waiting during the night in order to get to the accommodation. The accommodation would cost less than 300 sols for 3 nights, although I also had to pay for a late check-out or an additional night since the return flight to Lima left at 21:00.

The nightmare began

One of the first things to happen once we were in the boarding area was seeing for ourselves that the flight was delayed. Well, it was only a delay but there was nobody there at the time to tell us when the flight would leave and why it was delayed.

The nightmare therefore began at that moment. My mother, who hadn’t even eaten in order to arrive on time with us had to come with an empty stomach. After begging her to let me buy her something we got an empanada in the airport, where by the way, everything is quite expensive. An empanada and a glass of chicha that was available cost 10 sols.

Then my mum stayed say in one of the rows in the waiting room with my brother until we could see any information on the screen that would tell us which gate we needed to go to. My mum was more tired than ever but despite this, she didn’t lose her positive attitude. From this moment on our airport nightmare began, all because of the company Viva Air Peru.

Finally, after waiting for about an hour in the boarding area, the gate information had finally been released for the Lima to Liquitos flight, and the number read 36, so we had to go downstairs to get to that gate. I then went to tell me mum and my brother so that they could get ready and start walking with me straight to this new waiting area. When we arrived the girl from the counter was just finishing her announcement, so all I knew at the time was that the flight was going to leave in about an hour.

Waiting at gate 36

The three of us sat waiting, my mother, my brother and I, with Lima airport’s Wi-Fi that didn’t work. My brother had a smile on his face despite everything and was excited to board the plane. Whilst this happened we also had the arrival of the Sporting Cristal del Callao team. I’m not much of a fan of local matches so I only realised they were famous because of the people from Callao. They were sat next to us but there were so many people from said delegation that, in order to not feel uncomfortable, my mother and I went to the side of another row close by so that we could be calmer.

More and more people were coming to take photos with the Sporting Cristal del Callao team. My mum and I did nothing more than laugh at the fanaticism of some of the people that were there, whilst others from the group were greeting some tourists who were close by but I don’t think any of them spoke English so they surrendered and couldn’t do anything but simply smile.

It had already been more than an hour and my patience was really starting to run out, or rather, in order to not be consumed by impatience, I turned on my computer to watch a film that I had already downloaded with my brother so that he didn’t get bored waiting for them to give us an update. Then I went up to the desk to talk to one of the Viva Air girls near to gate 36 and they told me it would be around 20:30 that the plane would leave. I had no choice but to keep waiting with my little brother and my mother, which was what annoyed me the most in a way because I didn’t want them to have to wait so long. This trip was supposed to be relaxing for us and not to end up like this but Viva Air Peru was losing more and more points.

The first call to board, a game of lies

It was already nearly 21:10 when the girl from the Viva Air Peru desk finally told us that we could start to queue to be able to use the shuttle bus service that would take us to the plane. Then about 70 people got onto the bus to take us to the plane, my excited brother took a couple of photos whilst waiting so that we could see how happy he was to be there, but this was soon going to become a nightmare for him since knowing that he had to wait so long was already starting to affect him.

Once all of the passengers were on the bus, it started its slow journey to where the plane was and from then on I started to get a feeling that something bad was going to happen because they were telling us then after 15 minutes without being able to leave, looking at the plane right before our eyes, that we were going to be taken back to the boarding area to wait just 15 more minutes, which in reality turned into a long hour of waiting.

I couldn’t believe it. Never in my life had I experienced this kind of service, and it was making me so angry that my little brother was seeing all of this and living it with me, and of course my mother too who went beyond her means to get them to take us on the bus. Of course, we weren’t the only ones with a bitter taste in our mouths since the rest of the passengers were also outraged by the service given by Viva Air Peru.

Free meal to calm the storm

As I told you, it wasn’t only me with a bitter taste in my mouth, but all of the passengers sat on the bus who were being returned to the boarding gate. I know that the Viva Air Peru girls who were attending to us weren’t totally responsible for it, but they had to suffer the consequences of listening to everyone’s annoyance at waiting more than 4 hours to take our flight ti Iquitos. This was definitely something that nobody imagined.

In this moment of desperation, one of the boys from the loading team came to tell us that there had been a problem with the door of the plane and that for security reasons, they had to perform maintenance that would be resolved in approximately 15 minutes. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about the information that I was receiving in that moment. Another thing mentioned by one of the passengers at the time was that we were travelling with young children, who hadn’t even eaten dinner which was all the responsibility of Viva Air Peru.

In the midst of the turmoil and agitation the representative of Viva Air Peru told us that she was going to give us a free food voucher to use at a place in the airport called 365, so there we waited for them to attend to us. I can say at least that this did calm some people that were there with us but not everyone because some people were completely disgusted. I was one of the calm ones at the time because I was with my little brother and my mother, so we went to eat three triples along with a fizzy drink to regain some energy and continue with the ordeal of Viva Air Peru.

Time to get on the plane

There I was with my mum and my brother, finishing eating our triple to that the same guy who told us that the plane was going to leave in 15 minutes would find us ready to go. These fifteen minutes actually became almost an hour of waiting since it was 22:30 when we started to board the bus to be taken to the plane and luckily this time it took us to the plane and everybody began to board. My brother was so excited for this to happen since we had waited five long hours since 17:30 and the moment had finally arrived.

Fortunately our reservation had us placed in rows together so my mum, my little brother and I were next to each other. My brother began to sit himself next to the window so that he could see what this flight looked like from the plane. However, despite all of this my brother was going to have a bad experience, well not only him but all of us on that flight that brought us more than a headache.

I’d never used Viva Air Peru before and to be honest everything up to take off had been so slow, but the girls on the plane that were giving indications were starting to talk to people. To be truthful, I don’t know if this is part of the fresh service that Viva Air Peru wants to give but I personally didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t only me but also some elderly people who were asking them to change their ‘speech’.

We were listening to the instructions given by the Viva Air Peru girl when finally the plane started to take off. My brother was the most excited of everyone there and he took a couple of photos to remember the moment. Well, I thought to myself, despite everything, at least we’re flying now. We were going to arrive in Iquitos quite late but at least we were on the way to our destination and I couldn’t complain about that. I think that what I was looking for was to support my brother’s excitement and visions to make his holiday a great one that he would remember.

Despite all of this, I was honestly so tired from having been at the airport all day and all i wanted at the time was to rest, so I drifted off into the land of nod. Nothing could happen to me with my seatbelt on and my brother was telling my mum how excited he was to be on this flight and to see all of the things that he could see from high up. Fortunately, shortly afterwards he also fell asleep next to us, whilst I was the one awoken by the speakers telling us that, with only 20 minutes left until landing, due to climate problems that were going on in Iquitos, the plane had to return to Lima. I couldn’t believe it and once again didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the news. How was it possible for so many bad things to happen to us in one afternoon all because of Viva Air Peru. My brother, who was sleeping, didn’t hear this last minute change, and now how was I going to tell him that we were no longer going to Iquitos but that we were returning to nothing other than where we took off from. We had to return to Lima and there another story would be awaiting us, another feud was just around the corner.

Returning to the boarding gate at Jorge Chavez airport

When we arrived one of the first things they mentioned on the plane was that one of the airport staff would be waiting for us to give us more information about what we should do in order to find out where we needed to go for this flight change or its cancellation that was happening at the last minute.

The plane then landed in the city of Lima and from there we arrived at the boarding gate, which was completely empty. At the time, all I could think to do was to follow the crowd to know where we would be going on this trip. Each one of us carrying our little backpack, we began to walk and to follow the majority of them. The whole group directed itself towards the counters where the different airlines that give flight information are, that are available for departure and the luggage check-in.

Our luck was so bad that when we arrived there was nobody from Viva Air at the counter, so we had to go back to the entrance where the national arrivals people were to be able to continue with the process. Unfortunately we didn’t find any representatives of the company who were at the gate, but what we did find was a large security lady who didn’t let us return to the boarding gate nor those who had suitcases in the airport as hold luggage. Apparently our bad luck was playing tricks on us but this wasn’t going to stop us from claiming our rights.

Time to calm the waters

Everyone who was there wanted to listen to a representative of the company Viva Air but we couldn’t find a single one, so we had to keep waiting for an outcome. All they told us in the entrance was that in a few more minutes a representative would arrive and that airport security were managing the situation and looking at helping us with this problem.

Whilst this was happening, one of the ladies took out her phone and started to communicate with a representative of Viva Air Peru to see what was going to happen now. Then everyone became aware of the possible responses that Viva Air could give us since one of the things they told us was that the flight was effectively cancelled due to bad weather in the city of Iquitos and what we had to do now was hope that the plane would leave again first thing in the morning. They also told him that the plane was going to leave on Sunday afternoon, as they were realising that there was no clear answer to what we were waiting for at the time, so we had no choice but to wait for a response from a representative of the company who would arrive in person to give us more information about it.

My brother had a sad little face and the only person who was calm at the time was my mum so I told them that they should go home because it didn’t look like we were getting a response for a while and I didn’t want to annoy them. They told me that they would stay anyway until I finished everything so that we could go home together since it was almost 1 o’clock in the morning and we still didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t just us who were helpless but also everyone else who was there. Additionally, there were people who didn’t speak Spanish and therefore it was impossible for them to know what was going on and there they should go in order to deal with this service that was still awaiting a response, not only for them but for all of us who were there.

Finally, after waiting, a person arrived in an orange vest, a white shirt and black pants wearing a pair of dark glasses. He told the whole group that within a few moments more airport staff would bring the suitcases to the gate to be collected by those who had come with hold luggage. However as for the delay and cancellation of the airplane the only solution they were offering was to go to Sheraton Hotel and in order to be able to return to the airport early the next day to continue this terrible ordeal. On the one hand we were a little relaxed by this information, but on the other hand he was going to assure us that we could continue with this process, where we should have arrived (they only mentioned that at the back of the Costa del Sol Ramada hotel there would be one of the shuttle buses that would take us to spend the night at the Sheraton Hotel).

A lot of the people them decided to take their suitcases, their little equipment. The only bad thing about this decision was that we were not going to have an exact flight time for Sunday, supposedly they’d said “first thing in the morning”. We weren’t guaranteed anything, in my case, the journey that I’d organised to return home on the 17th October. However with all of this fuss I didn’t even have internet to get in touch with the accommodation given that I didn’t want to pay a no-show penalty, or to know that a taxi driver was waiting for hours for us and that we never arrived to take his service.

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Speaking with INDECOPI

At the time when we were waiting for an answer, a group of about 9 people that were there started to approach the INDECOPI counter. This state-owned organisation defends consumer rights and offers a help service when a customer receives bad service, as well as advising on the compensation that the company responsible should give to the customer. One of the first things we did then was to wait for this group of 9 people, led by a lady, to finish explaining everything that had happened to be able to claim a refund from the company for the ticket that was more or less 365 sols since it was a low-cost flight.

The man who was at the window listened calmly to each of our situations and advised us and then informed us of the process we should follow so that they didn’t scan us and then we could continue with the refund process, or at least assert out rights.

If Viva Air had been able to arrive on time, if it had been able to take off at the allotted time this misfortune never would have happened, the situation of having to wait more than five hours in the airport to go to the Peruvian jungle. So we waited helplessly all of the afternoon and the evening for them to give us a negative view of them for waiting and for on top of that, telling us we had to wait until the next day for an answer. This was something that left us with no choice but to formally claim with INDECOPI so that they help us with the refund process.

It was then that, between all of this waiting, we were told that the company had 8 working days to communicate with us. As for the group of 9 people, they had informed them that on Wednesday they had to return to the airport to have a meeting with the people from Viva Air at the INDECOPI gate in order to reach a mutual agreement, and if we were not present of if the airline didn’t show up before the date, all we could do was to wait for the company to show up so that it could solve the problems that we had with this flight. What we wanted to be an unforgettable trip turned out to be just that, but became a nightmare that I still remember to this day as being one of my most horrible airport trips. Never before had I had to wait such a long time, only to get on a plane which then later returned without success.

It was at this point in the process of being in the airport that, after the group of 9 people had finished with their request, it was mine and my mother’s turn to formally complain. This time, as the INDECOPI representative already knew of our situation, he only made a few changes to the previous group’s papers so that we could get in contact with Viva Air Peru. This meant it was possible to develop the formal response that we had to await from the company Viva Air Peru.

With all of the waiting process, we had already waited until almost 2 o’clock in the morning and it was then that we ended up dead from all of the waiting, and above all my little brother who had been so excited all day to come here to fly to Iquitos, only to have to wait, a terrible wait, as we joke in my family: with hunger, thirst and pain.

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After having had the response from INDECOPI, they gave me a sheet so that I could be supported in my claim and then it was time to go home. Taxi drivers had begun jumping at the chance to take us home – some of them wanted to charge us up to 35 sols for a journey less than 10 minutes. This was a price that we were not going to pay, so we had to leave the main gate of the airport to take a street taxi that ended up only costing us 18 sols, which isn’t cheap either, but it was one of the best options we could find at that time of the morning.

So then in a few minutes, for my good luck of living near the airport, we were already at the front door ready to climb the stairs and rest. Well, not rest because my mum was ill and I was starting to catch a terrible cold and my brother, like any child of his age, was already crying for attention wanting to travel anywhere. He told us that be wanted to travel anywhere tomorrow morning and that he didn’t want to go to school.

Despite it already being dawn, my brother didn’t want to sleep and the only thing that would calm his anger was to watch the film ‘Chucky’s Bride’ on the tablet whilst lying on his bed. We were both lying together to accompany him, so we would have been there more or less until 3 o’clock in the morning, a sign that it was time to rest and sleep to have more energy the following day.

I don’t know how this story will end and what the final result from Viva Air Peru will be. It was a terrible experience that has stayed in my memory and that will never disappear because it put me through not only waiting, but also cancellation after boarding and then a return to the starting point. Destiny was trying to make us side-step this trip because we then started to get ill and, despite being ill, we left in order to not miss the plane. After so much waiting this experience ended up being much more expensive than what we expected. A trip that really did leave a bitter taste in the palate.

For the moment all I can do is wait for a response until this Thursday, which is when I have to return to the airport to find out what result I should obtain for this discomfort. It had given me a bad feeling to see in the media that so many people who had taken the Viva Air service were also having bad experiences and to not want this to happen to me, so I didn’t want to investigate the news headlines that ended up being bad experiences of the company Viva Air.

In Peru, people aren’t yet used to low-cost flights but this outcome, which was supposed to be one of the best and a revolution in Inca skies, ended up being so bad that now many people are looking towards other airlines such as L. C Peru or Latam, companies that have held the reign in Peruvian skies for many years. This competitor put their future of operating in jeopardy, however up to now nobody is sure what will happen later on and what awaits us in this round trip. We’re going to think positively to know that Viva Air is going to accept responsibility for their mistakes and that, in my case, I can get a refund. This is the least I expect after having the worst possible flying experience: to fly, to stay in the dark and finally to not arrive in the destination that I planned so carefully. Thanks Viva Air Peru for ruining the trip. You know now to take precautions if you choose this company and prepare yourselves to fight against it, since the journey to getting a response will be long.

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