TAM » User reviews

Dadou73 flew TAM Economy (long-haul), on a B777-300ER (24/10/2011 15:18)

Boarding is a real problem in GRU, baggage handling is really bad.
However the flight was very nice, the food very good, the cabin amazingly quiet and cabin crew very nice.
JJ8026 GRU-SCL

Dadou73 flew TAM Economy (long-haul), on a A330-200 (24/10/2011 15:13)

Nice ride, nice food, nice IFE, nice crew, bad welcome in GRU ... Pretty nice airline. There is a big problem for luggage in connection in GRU.
JJ8065 MAD-GRU

mikkeleld flew TAM Business (long-haul), on a A330-200 (29/08/2011 13:25)

Tflyer91 flew TAM Economy, on a A320 (Config 1) (31/12/2010 00:31)

I've flown by TAM for many years, and this flight was not very different from others of this route. The Check-in at Manaus was fast and the Boarding too. We departed from Manaus at the right time. The IFE wasn't very good. The food was the same hot sandwich of every TAM's flight it was ok. I tried to sleep but I couldn't, TAM's A320 seats are not the best for sleeping. Arriving at BSB in the right time. TAM has a lot to improve, but it was a normal flight.

Tflyer91 flew TAM Economy, on a A320 (Config 2) (31/12/2010 00:22)

I've flown by TAM for many years, and this flight was not very different from others of this route. The Check-in at Manaus was fast and the Boarding too. We departed from Manaus at the right time. The IFE wasn't very good. The food was the same hot sandwich of every TAM's flight it was ok. I tryed to sleep but I couldn't, TAM's A320 seats are not the best for sleeping. Arriving at BSB in the right time. TAM has a lot to improve, but it was a normal flight.

JRankin flew TAM Business (long-haul), on a B777-300ER (07/11/2010 19:46)

I flew to Sao Paulo in August and had a brilliant flight with TAM, so I thought I would fly with them again - unfortunately, not so good.

Check in was fine ( uniquely Brazillian!!).

The TAM business lounge was dreadful - too small for the demand, poor selection of drinks, poor selection of snacks, inadequate seating, no entertainment, no PA, just a member of staff walking around announcing each flight.

On board, service was poor - no welcome drink for 15 minutes. I had reserved my seat in advance ( a window). Soon after boargding, a couple boarded, They were clearly surprised to be sitting on either side of the aisle (one next to me, one on the other side of the aisle). I knew instantly who would be asked to move - me. However, they were left standing for 15 minutes before being attended by a crew member. Eventually, without any real apology, I was asked if I would move to the centre seat. The crew member could tell that I was very unhappy at being asked to move but made no apology for it, and when I reluctanty agreed, made nothing of it.

The lovely couple that I swapped with were very grateful, but I was very annoyed that TAM had split them up in the first place, and even more annoyed that it always seems to be me (the single traveller) who has to nake way for couples (twice in the last 6 long haul flights).

the service was extremely patchy after that, with the pursar seeming to prefer to spend his time in the first class galley (despite no first class passengers). Breakfast was very badly served. I was woken for breakfast an hour before they started serving it. My fruit and cereal was brought promptly ( I was in the front row of the forward business cabin) but my cup of tea was not brought until they started clearing away other peoples food. I was not asked whether I wantyed the hot meal, and eventually got served the eggs (and inedible tomato) 45 minutes after starting breakfast. It was all very poor

My first experience of TAM was great, my second average, and this my third was poor. Except that they have a very comfortable seat and pillow and blanket :-)

JRankin flew TAM Business (long-haul), on a A330-200 (07/11/2010 19:25)

This journey was a big conundrum. A real mixture of good and bad.

Check in went well, and was offered the seat of my choice. Business class lounge ( Star Alliance) at LHR T1 was fine, if a bit busy.

The flight is a mile away from the lounge, so it is a long walk and no announcements in the lounge, so not brilliant.. My seat was absolutely fine (better than on Swiss).

Tyhe food was good, although the service was very perfunctory. There was a cabing crew memeber who spoke great English, but she kept sending the poor lady who spoke no english to serve me, and so we had a challenge throughout the flight. Overall an average flight.

But transferring in Rio was a complete pain. My business baggage came of almost last, the signs for transfers were poor, there was a huge queue at the transfer desk and only one person working. So I went to the normal check in desk, to check my transfer bag in - and was kept waiting for 30 mins by the man in charge of check-in - for no apparent reason.

Anyway, eventually made the transfer flight 9to Sao Paul, and surprisingly had a fab hot cheese and ham roll and cup of great coffee.

So, a real mixture - transferring in Rio should only be done if you have plenty of time!

SamWardill flew TAM Business, on a A320 (Config 1) (27/10/2010 19:19)

After my fairly positive review of my transatlantic TAM flight, I didn't feel I could leave my poor Latin American sector (Rio to Buenos Aires) unreviewed.

Check-in was rapid and efficient even though I ended up going economy as my colleague was flying in the back.

The lounge had a reasonable selection of food and drink, not many chairs, no wi-fi. I didn't really spend much time in there as my colleague was outside.

Our flight left about an hour late. There was little information about the delays before boarding. The pilot at least gave us some information about the subsequent airport congestion delays.

My seat was quite uncomfortable. There was little legroom especially when the person in front reclined their seat. The attendant allowed the person in front to keep their seat reclined during take off.

The attendant serving in business was the slowest flight attendant I have ever been served by. Despite the fact that he was clearly struggling, his colleague did little to help. I was finally served dinner at midnight Rio time having taken off at 10pm, an hour later than scheduled.

Dinner was poor quality. I'd overdosed on churrasco in Rio so I chose the vegetarian pasta option of ricotta filled tortellini (rather than the beef which would have definately been a disappointment after my churrasco fest). The tortellini arrived squashed, stodgy and bland.

I would have sent TAM an email about the poor service on this flight. However they don't have email contact details on their website.

SamWardill flew TAM Business (long-haul), on a A330-200 (25/10/2010 13:53)

Check In: I could not check in for my flight online. This seems to only be available for users of the Brazilian site (in Portuguese). However I had selected my seat. I arrived at Heathrow Terminal 1 and there was no queue for business check in. Check in was easy. The check in person told me I could use the fast track security lane. This turned out to be incorrect but did not matter as the queue was short and I was airside in no time

Lounge: TAM uses the Star Alliance lounge at Heathrow. This has a good range of food, drink & reading materials. It also has other things you would want such as free wi-fi & showers. It has very few power sockets so you had to sit in a booth if you wanted to use a laptop with power.

Boarding: The gate was a very long walk from the lounge. I think we will have to put up with this until the new Terminal 2 is finished. Boarding was smooth. I was offered Champagne or Orange Juice once seated. We left on time with no hassle.

Seat: The seat is a flat but inclined in 2:2:2 configuration on my A330. I was in 8C. This seemed to me to be as good as any. There are two cabins. The first (rows 5 & 6) has only 12 seats and might be quieter and more personal. However you would then be either by the bulkhead or the toilet. The bulkhead seats have unrestricted legroom. However I find this less cosy. Even though I am 6’4” I had enough legroom and would not choose a bulkhead. If you are a person who favours aisle seats then you might prefer the middle seats as then no-one would ever have to climb over you. This was my first time in a reclined flat seat (as opposed to a BA type flat bed). I found I slept quite well but this TAM seat was uncomfortable on my feet as the footrest had little padding. When seated an annoyance is that the seat controls are on top of the armrest. Therefore I often found myself moving the seat accidentally by resting my arm. There were two (small) toilets for 36 seats. All the unoccupied seats (8 of them) were blocked off for crew rest. This seemed a little excessive. Perhaps a more customer friendly gesture would have been to allow paying passengers to swap about and have a free seat next to them.

IFE: The screen was large and well placed. The headphones were non-proprietary noise reducing headsets. This meant that, to stop them being stolen, they recorded each one distributed and collected them 20 minutes before the IFE was switched off for landing (annoyingly). At this point it was swapped for a $2 cheap headset. The film selection was OK (9 films including some recent releases that I wanted to see) but the only way to see more detail about the film was to click through on the menu. This was cumbersome. A printed guide would have been appreciated. The IFE was not working at the start of the flight and had to be reset.

Food and drink: We were served hot nuts, seeds & dried fruit on boarding with our champagne / orange juice. The attendant took our meal & drinks choices around take off. The pre-dinner drink did not appear to be a big thing. However I appreciated this for a 09:15pm departure as I just wanted to eat. I was also offered an express service which was the same food but served together and thus more quickly (I really appreciated this). The wine choice was good. My St. Emillion was to my liking. It was not refilled during my meal (but this was probably also a good thing as I had to work on arrival). The food was reasonable quality but nothing special. I had chicken saltimbocca which was tasty but dry. Before landing we were served a substantial hot and cold breakfast.

Service: The crew were pleasant and friendly. I didn’t understand what they were saying to me a lot of the time. However this might have been because I am not used to a Brazilian accent (not necessarily because their English was not up to scratch).

Arrival: We arrived early. Ours was the first flight of the day. There was no queue at immigration. My bag arrived a few minutes after I got to the baggage hall and I was in a taxi before our scheduled arrival time.

Summary: All together a reasonable flying experience. The only other direct choice on this route would have been BA. The TAM service was of equal quality to BA. BA’s flat bed would have won me over but my budget would have not stretched to paying twice as much for the ticket (as was the case when I booked).

JRankin flew TAM Business (long-haul), on a B777-300ER (01/10/2010 21:59)

I have flow to or from Brazil three times with Tam in the last 2 months. Great for the two flights from London to Brazil, but not so great on the one return journey. Using the Star alliance lounge at LHR is great, and the food ex-London is very good. On the return journey, the TAM lounge at Sao Paulo is way too small and cramped (and busy) and the food onboard was not the best - the service was alos slow considering it was a midnight departure from Sao Paulo and everyone was hungry and tired - over an hour to get a drink in Business Class

FranklinSternberg flew TAM Economy (long-haul), on a A330-200 (20/08/2010 12:39)

TAM ground staff mainly at GRU (Sao Paulo Guarulhos International Airport) are of an utmost bad education, they do not have the qualification and proper training, and their information is misleading and of no knowledge on almost all basic information.

At check-in I recommend to be careful specially with seat assignments - do double-check to assure no major surprises on board (like next to the toilets) or seats that do not recline or have minor space for legroom.

If the emergency exit seats in Economy are offered at an outrageous tariff, also, make sure that on board all the passengers seated in these seats have paid. The so called Comfort Zone (sic!) can be occupied by late check-in passengers who did not pay for this "extra" due to overbooking or all seats already assigned in economy being these ones the only left. Or, worse, after closure of the aircraft door, passengers do move around and do accommodate in these seats with the lame excuse that "upon arrival I shall pay the difference" which, of course, does not happen. On board crew is kind, but not efficient enough to have their authority present in such case - and Captain and/or First Officer don't take any action rather than "call" destination ground staff to report this event.

Fact: this happened to me on flight JJ 8097 CDG/GRU on Aug 12, 2010

FranklinSternberg flew TAM Economy, on a A320 (Config 1) (20/08/2010 12:28)

TAM check-in staff offers to their best valued upper FFP the worst seat on board - 11C, seat does not recline, and has the worst and smallest legroom on board.

J.Augusto flew TAM Business (long-haul), on a A330-200 (16/06/2010 21:59)

I normally fly TAM from the US to Brazil. I like the airline very much and it is the best alternative by far when compared to the US airlines. However, TAM could have more options of movies in the entertainment service (which is good) and a more diversified menu. Normally the airplanes are clean and well maintained from inside and outside. The flight attendants are polite, but could be faster when serving the dinner. One critical negative issue is the seat. I can not understand how an airline decide to change the seats of its Business Class and chose the worst one.... It is very uncomfortable seated and when converted into a 'bed' - TAM's seats can not be compared to very good ones like Air France, Iberia, LAN, South Africa, Singapore, Emirates....

ramazan flew TAM Economy (long-haul), on a A340-500 (18/05/2010 19:08)

robffm2 flew TAM Business (long-haul), on a B777-300ER (04/05/2010 14:47)

Have been non-ref with a friend (who works as FA for TAM) on the flight from FRA to GRU. Nice, personal service. Seats are big comfortable, even though I'm a big guy. Generally I don't like the middle seat in BC on the 777.

AnaCarvalho flew TAM Economy (long-haul), on a A330-200 (23/04/2010 11:58)

For me traveling with Tam was a bad experience, my son who is 2 years and 6 months old and I had to pay for his car seat as extra luggage (U$100). We were also giving seats backing to the lavatories (3 seat row) that made a horrible sound every time someone used it, my son was scared of the sound and could not sleep. The flight was late wthout any technical reason, we waited 40 extra minutes. They have no menu for children so avoid asking to change your menu unless your child eat a sandwich for dinner.

The crew was very helping but the other problems could not offset the 10 hours of discomfort of the flight, we were flying form JFK (NYC) to GRU ( Guarulhos, Brazil).

On arrival we had to wait another half hour to get help with our luggage since they do not have baggage handlers in Guarulhos.

So if you travel with TAM arm yourself with tons of patience or travel with someone else.

Ah, I could observe a family of three, a Mother traveling with two young girls (5 and 3 years old) who were giving separete seats and had to ask around the plane for people to change with them so they could seat together, they had no help from the crew.

Regulus flew TAM Economy (long-haul), on a A330-200 (01/04/2010 11:52)

The Service on this airline is IMPECCIBLE. They serve you REAL FOOD on all their Flights, and Show Entertainment on their Video Screens (Movies on the Longer Flights, Cartoons on the Shorter Ones) In 2005, while with a Church Mission Trip to Santoreim, Brazil we got the luxery to fly the Sao Paule-Manaus segment First Class! :)

juanchichus flew TAM Economy (long-haul), on a B777-300ER (06/01/2010 09:54)

TAM airlines is quite good, I was not expecting this kind of service for the budget price that I paid, I really like in the way they treat you giving you free; blanket, pillow, sleep mask, etc.

I have flown with other airlines where you have to pay for your food, to watch films and to get the best seats, but TAM did not charge me for anything, the only bad thing was the connection in Sao Paulo, what a mess, they only have 1 queue for all the connection flights that they do in South America, and nearly all of them get at the same time in Brasil so you are in a little panic attack that you won't make it. We flew from UK to Chile but on the way back our bags never make the conection because we were delayed leaving Chile, but finally they arrived 2 days later and they have sent it to our home.