When booking our customers' Peru holidays, we organise all their internal transportation, including cars, coaches and their internal flights. Although there are several operators serving Peru's domestic flight market, wherever possible we always try and work with the largest and most reliable, LanPeru - an offshoot of the Chilean operator Lan. Although they are often the most expensive of Peru's domestic airlines, LanPeru serve most destinations within the country and we have always found them to be efficient, reliable and friendly. Our preference has been justified today by the news that Peru's Ministry for Transport and Communications has grounded all flights by TANS, one of the other major aviation companies in Peru.
This surprise action by the MTC has suspended indefinitely all flights by TANS (Transportes Aéreos Nacionales de la Selva) on the grounds that they no longer feel able to 'guarantee the security of passengers'. The director of Peru's Civil Aviation Directorate (DGAC), Oscar Rodríguez, explained that the decision was taken in the light of a succession of mechanical failures in TANS aircraft. For their part, TANS have said that they will be undertaking a full maintenance audit from Monday and have complained that the government is taking this action without actually inspecting their fleet or finding any extant problems.
Here at RealPeru we hope and presume that TANS will be up and running - safely!- soon but we will continue to keep a close eye on the situation so you can be sure that when you book a Peru holiday with RealPeru you'll be flying safely and comfortably wherever you fly to!
UPDATE - Thursday 12th of January - In a statement released today, TANS have claimed that 90% of DGAC's recommendations have already been met and that remaining items will be cleared up during the course of the next few days. They have also launched a civil suit against DGAC's director for "abuse of his position", claiming that his actions were motivated by malice and showed favouritism towards foreign airlines. As always, we'll keep you posted!
UPDATE - Saturday 28th of January - In what seems like the final resolution to this saga, we are sorry to say that TANS have ceased trading, citing large losses brought on by the enforced cancellation of their services over the past few weeks. As we have said above, this won't cause any problem to Peru holidays booked with Real Peru as all our flights are booked with other airlines.
UPDATE - Thursday 16th of February - Back from the dead! Just when it seemed like there was no way back, and following a previous announcement that they would cease trading, an announcement today from TANS said that they would start flying again at the start of next week on routes from Lima to Iquitos, Tarapoto, Ucayali, Tumbes and Madre de Dios. This followed the news that the DGAC have lifted the restrictions previously imposed on TANS following further investigation into levels of safety. RealPeru are pleased that TANS are back up and running and we will continue to monitor the situation to see if this new announcement will be helpful for our passengers.