[FortHay]

This last summer my family traveled between LAX - DFW - GRU (Sao Paulo) and - FOR (Fortaleza). The LAX <-> GRU legs were served by AA and this does not concern them.
Our outbound flight from DFW to Brazil was delayed for several hours due to heavy fog in Sao Paulo. We are actually grateful this new approach is taken, because in past years flights en route to the notoriously foggy (in wintertime) GRU port were re-routed to other cities, creating a lot of inconvenience.
Needless to say, our delay caused us to miss the scheduled connection with TAM to Fortaleza. On leaving customs, a pleasant TAM employee was waiting for us (and some others), and she actually had boarding passes ready for on another flight, leaving soon. I was surprised and pleased. That is exactly how things should go. Unfortunately this was the last and only time TAM airport operations showed efficiency, customer service or courtesy !
We were told to check in at the counter. The boarding hall was in full pandemonium (probably due to the fog delays) and we had to wait in a long queue. By the time it was our turn, the agent had no trouble locating our e-tickets, but we were told the flight had closed (though our baggage made it !) and we should see the ticketing office for another flight.
Naturally, there was another queue at the ticketing office. When it was our turn, we were told that this was the wrong place for us to be. We had to go outside and get stand-by tickets at the stand-by counter. Guess what? There was a huge queue, but we did get boarding passes on a flight to leave shortly. Next we lined up in yet another long queue to pass domestic security. We tried to cut the queue by letting the airport person running that thing know that we had an impending departure, but we were rebuffed. Nevertheless we arrived at the appointed gate (No. 12) in time, but there was no indication our flight was boarding, would board anytime soon or any indication about the flight whatsoever. We waited to be seen by the gate agent (Renata). She professed to know nothing about our flight, but asked us for our boarding passes and she would inquire. While we waited, we watched her chit-chat and dawdle and about 15 minutes later she told us the flight had been switched to gate No.3, and that it was now done boarding. When we remonstrated Renata actually got snippy and told us this was our fault because we had not paid sufficient attention to announcements. Aside from the fact that these announcements are unintelligible even to Portuguese speakers, we were certainly out of earshot in the famous security queue at the time. She then told us return to the check in counter (see above), This meant leaving the secured area and starting the entire miserable process over.
Needless to say, after almost 24 hours travel and in response to such shabby treatment, I had now reached the limits of my patience.
At the check-in counter I cut the queue and insisted to speak with a supervisor. It took some time, but I was seen by a young woman and she promised to fix us up. Again, it took a bit, but she put us on the next available flight to Fortaleza, a sum total of 5 hours later than the first departure arranged for us when we came out of customs. The supervisor was busy, but she never said a word to compensate for her company's failings.
The TAM on-board service, both inbound and outbound was good.

On the return leg, TAM airport personnel showed more incompetence and poor attitude. we arrived for check-in to GRU in plenty of time, but of course there was, you guessed it, a huge queue, because a bunch of flights were leaving at similar times. When it was our turn, the check-in agent could not locate my wife's reservation and actually claimed to have doubts she even had a valid reservation ! (Just exactly how she arrived in Brazil, did not seem to faze her). My wife was sent across the hall to the ticket counter, because "only they can locate a reservation by name alone". This is patent nonsense, because, despite the incompetence demonstarted by the Sao Paulo check-in staff on arrival, they had had no trouble at all. My wife, you gotta love this, had to wait in a queue, return to get her passport from me (at this point I was refusing to budge from the counter) and when she finally returned with the famous reservation code, we all got our boarding passes, but not so much as a whimper of an apology. Again, we were told that this was our fault for not having the codes ready for TAM.

The Olympic Games and the World Cup are coming to Brazil and the country does not have a competent, professional (nor, apparently, safe -> see TAM accidents) airline. TAM ground staff are young, good looking and clueless. When a passenger with connections has problems, the supervisor should be called in without prompting. When a supervisor percieves that customers were delayed or inconvenienced he/she must APOLOGIZE, because he/she represents the company. TAM personnel can never tell customers it's their fault (even if it were true.)

We travel to Brazil on a regular basis and this is not the first observation of this type about TAM. We are now actively pursuing alternative connections with TAM's national competitors (GOL, WebJet, VARIG) and I urge others to do the same.