Travel: Flights to Santiago

Santiago Airport (IATA: SCL) (ICAO: SCEL) is the main gateway for travellers around the world, and is served by many airlines from all three major airline alliances. The travel time from the international airport in Santiago to the city centre has been drastically reduced recently, with the construction of a new highway. Tur-bus is a nice alternative, you´ll find them in a kiosk in the center of the baggage claim in the airport, they charge $7 USD for door-to-door shuttle service, or $3 USD for a bus service.

From the US, American Airlines and LAN operate flights from Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Washington (D.C.) and Dallas. Some flights have layovers in Guayaquil or Lima. Delta Air Lines operates direct flights from Atlanta, and United Airlines operates direct flights from Washington (D.C.) and Chicago. Many of these flights are overnight, and most use widebody aircraft such as the Boeing 767.

Air Canada operates a daily flight from Toronto.

From Europe, Air France, Iberia, LAN and Lufthansa (code-sharing with SWISS) operate daily flights into Santiago from their hubs. Some flights stop in Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires. Please note that flight times from Europe vary between 18 hours from Frankfurt (due to stop-over in Sao Paulo) to 12 hours from Madrid and is considerably tiring! Most routes to Europe are operated with Airbus A340s.

From Oceania, Qantas and LAN operate a weekly code-sharing flight from Sydney to Santiago via Auckland, New Zealand. It's at least 12 hours each way. LAN also operates an Auckland-Tahiti-Easter Island-Santiago route.