Star Princess - Transfer at Sao Paulo Airport (GRU)

[Northeastal]

My DW and I are travelling to Santiago in order to meet up with our cruise ship, the Star Princess. we are travelling out three days before the departure date.

 

I have a question about our outbound flight to Santiago Chile from Newcastle upon Tyne via London Heathrow and Sao Paulo (GRU) on 23rd / 24th January 2011 which has been booked by Princess Cruises on British Airways and TAM Airlines respectively.

 

The British Airways flight from London Heathrow arrives in Sao Paulo (GRU) at 7.00am (24th January). Our connection flight to Santiago on TAM Airlines departs Sao Paulo (GRU) at 8.55am. This is only a 1hr 55 min transfer time which seems very tight as we will need to:-

 

a) Claim baggage from BA flight

 

b) Go through immigration (if necessary)

 

c) Check in for TAM flight

 

d) Go through security

 

I would welcome any comments from people who have experience of this airport as to whether the 1hr 55 mins is sufficient to transit a busy airport where English is not the first langage?

 

The only other flight is at 6:00pm which would mean a wait of 11 hours if we missed our scheduled flight.

 

Princess are saying that British Airways will ticket us all the way through so that there will be no need to check in at Sao Paulo but British Airways are saying that they have no interline agreement with TAM airlines so we will have to check in at Sao Paula.

 

I would love to hear comments from anyone who has done this route as we are now confused?

 

Many thanks in advance.

[Northeastal]

Does anyone have any experience of this?