Review of Aerolineas Argentinas flight from Buenos Aires to New York in Business

Flying again on aerolíneas argentinas club condor class

I planned this trip as a summer vacation trip, and i was originally booked in economy class. Again, the luck was on my side and I was informed of an upgrade 48 hours before the departure of my flight. Little did I know that I was going to fly on the exact same seat, on the exact same plane, on the exact same class that I flew on my last flight report, from Buenos Aires to Rome. I didn't upload the report for the return flight as I was really tired after three weeks of walking and driving around Italy, and visiting lots of family members whose names I barely remembered. Sorry for that. I ended up uploading it, go check it out! - Today's ride is a four year old Airbus A330-200IGW which is a strange bird to see on this route, because most times Aerolineas uses the Airbus A330-200 (not the IGW version as it is used for flights to Europe, registration LV-FVI. My seat was 8H. 

Getting to ezeiza airport

Two options here: you either go by car, or by public transportation. I live in the suburban town of Quilmes, so a trip to the airport using public transint would have been very long given that the only option to Ezeiza Airport was the bus route 8. In case you want to know how to get there, I recommend to use the moovit app. For me, i would have needed to hop on the train, using the Roca Line to the Constitución station, where I should have taken the metro (line C) to the Avenida de mayo station, and after walking 200m towards the Casa Rosada (our version of the white house) I should have taken the bus route 8. (The direct one to the airport, otherwise it would have taken ages to get there).
Again, my choice was to take a taxi and it took me 40 minutes to get to Ezeiza. 

The ezeiza airport

There was almost no wait at the check-in. After the usual documentation checks (ESTAs, Visas, etc, etc) and the safety questions such as "Has anyone helped you packing your baggage)" we dropped of our baggage and went through security and passport control. Only ONE scanner was open and the line for Security wasn't that long but it would have been shorter if the other one was open as it should have been.  At passport control the "officer" was very mean and looked angry but he did its job. I headed to the Aerolineas Argentinas lounge located in front of gate 16. It was near empty

the lounge

The Salón Cóndor lounge was great. Very comfortable, with a good food selection and with lots of things to do. They have even added playstations and a kids playing area. Very good lounge.

boarding

Boarding started around 22:30. Our gate was wate 21, at the very end of the terminal. Since we had business class tickets, we lined up in the suspiciously long "Sky Priority" line. Then we realized that most of the people on the line were americans that for some reason ignored the anouncements that were made. They realized they were in the wrong queue when they were told so by the gate personnel when trying to scan their boarding passes. After entering the plane, I was greeted by a very kind crew. 

THE FLIGHT

This was my seat, the same as in my previous flight report. 8H. 

Next to us, there was an A340-300 (Reg. LV-FPU) bound for Madrid-Barajas. I flew on that bird twice, to and from Rome-Fiumicino in 2016

After a brief introduction by our crew and a drink service, the safety video was played and we started pushback. We took off on time, at 23:40. We crossed the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires (Adrogué, Lomas de Zamora, etc) and tracked north. Once we reached our cruising altitude, dinner service started. This was the appetizer:
 (sorry for the blury picture, I was way too tired by that time! That same day I had to wake up at 6:00AM)

It consisted of a piece of black bread with palmettos on top, and a strange white paste that I don't know what it was made of. But it tasted very good. A small tomato salad was also served along with some white bread and three sauces/dressings: Pesto, alioli (garlic mayonaisse) and chimichurri (slightly spicy sauce made with vinegar and dried herbs, very popular in Argentina with the meat).
For the main course I chose the Italian Pasta, this time it had a pomodoro sauce with some black olives and some small pieces of mozzarella.
 

It was very tasty. The other available choices were smoked salmon or grilled chicken breast. 
The dessert consisted of some quince and tomato chutney and brie cheese, along with a small ice lolly made by the local chain "Lucciano's". Very rich ice cream. We were also given a small box with two chocolate truffles. Since I forgot to take a picture, I'll put the picture of the dessert from my previous flight report, so you can see how it looked like. The only different thing on the photo is the cheese. That time was a piece of Gouda cheese and this time it was brie cheese.

After having my dessert,  I decided to go to sleep, so I went to the toilet to brush my teeth, and it happened to me again. There was another mean stewardess that told me to "use the other toilet since this one is reserved for "first class" (AR doesn't have first class) passengers". I ignored her, and when I left the bathroom for my seat, she looked at me, and I looked at her while I stepped onto the business class cabin. I thought about telling her that it wasn't the right way to treat passengers, but I was really tired, so I just left for my seat. I got a very solid 7 hours of sleep, and woke up while flying over northern Venezuela. I watched a movie. and breakfast was server. It consisted of croissants, muesli, fresh fruit, yoghurt, a warm ham and cheese sandwich and coffee/tea/mate cocido or orange juice. I skipped the muesli and the yoghurt, It was too much for me. The food quality and taste was again outstanding. 

This was the view from my window during breakfast

After breakfast, the crew started collecting the trays, and we started our descent.

We landed New York - John F. Kennedy international airport at 8:30 am. On time. After landing, we proceeded to go to the passport control line. I was surprised. Only ONE officer was on duty on the "Non Us citizens line"… Only one (and very mean) asian looking old man. The queue got so long that they told us to go with the US citizen officers. The officer that controlled me was nice. She asked what was the purpose of my trip, if it was my first time at New York  and where I was going to stay. After taking my fingerprints she stamped my passport and let me leave without problems.  No flight report would be complete without a video of the landing, so here you have it: