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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Aeroparque Jorge Newbery

Also known as the "other" Buenos Aires airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (airport code: AEP) is the source of most of the domestic flights in Argentina. This airport also offers flights to Argentina's South American neighbors like Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chili and Peru. We first discovered Jorge Newbery when I was booking my flight from the US to Buenos Aires and my heart momentarily stopped when I realized that there were two airports in Bs. As. and I had no idea which one I was supposed to book. This proved to be an unnecessary panic attack. Jorge Newbery does not have any direct flights from the US, and we always use the amazing United Airlines direct overnight flight from Washington, Dulles to Buenos Aires, Ezeiza Airport. Therefore, if we are flying without a connection, we're not flying to Jorge Newbery.

Jorge Newbery is actually a much closer airport for us. Located in Palermo, this airport is only a 15 minute cab ride from our apartment versus Ezeiza, which is close to 22 miles away. It's even more convenient because we can hail a cab outside our apartment instead of hiring a Remis in advance, which involved much more organization and advanced notice. The two major airlines that work out of Jorge Newbery are Aerolineas Argentinas and LAN, both government owned. We have found that Aerolineas Argentinas has better flight times, prices and flight frequency so for the two domestic trips that we've booked so far (Bariloche and Iguazu Falls), this is the airline we've used. Apparently, we are not alone, the ticket lines for AA were packed this morning.

Today we are on our way to Iguazu and we have hit our first hiccup in the Aerolineas Argentinas system. A few weeks ago I received an email that our flight time had changed from 11:30am to 9:20am, and that our tickets were automatically confirmed for the earlier flight. Sounds great. Then we arrive at the airport at our earlier designated time only to find that the flight before ours was canceled leading to a domino effect that left us without seats on the 9:20am flight. We then were rebooked on a 1:30pm flight. Not a huge inconvenience for us, but we would have preferred to sleep in and have a leisurely morning versus spending a few extra hours getting to know Jorge Newbery better. The only redeeming factor was that we were given a "light snack" voucher to spend at the airport for our inconvenience. Wish us luck!

The guys are sad over our airport delay. Lornie doesn't seem to mind.

2 comments:

  1. Hope you have fun, Dawn! Thanks for emailing along your blog--it's great to see what other people are doing down here in BA and in the surrounding areas. And any hotel recommendations you might have for Iguazu are very welcome!
    - Allison

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  2. Hey Dawn! Welcome to AA, your delay is the norm. Its usually cheaper but LAN (Chilian airline) is very nice and always reliable....traveling with kids (and usually someone visiting like grandparents) for us is more than worth the extra price! Good luck and can't wait to hear more about your adventures.

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