LAN Chile announced today that they’ll be restarting nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Santiago. The flight will operate 3x per week between October 16, 2016, and March 25, 2017. As of now the flight just seems to be operating in the Southern summer, but I imagine it has the potential to be extended beyond that if demand warrants it.
Santiago, Chile
This complements LAN’s existing flight between Los Angeles and Lima, which offers connecting service to Santiago. This will shave 2hr20min off the travel time between Los Angeles and Santiago compared to the airline’s existing one stop service, which takes 13hr southbound and 13hr30min northbound.
LAN’s 787s feature a total of 30 fully flat business class seats, spread across five rows in a 2-2-2 configuration. So while not cutting edge, it’s a perfectly nice product. The plane also has 217 economy class seats.
LAN’s 787 business class
The flight should become bookable as of later today. Hopefully LAN releases a decent amount of award availability on the route. If booking through American AAdvantage, this route would cost just 50,000 miles each way in business class. Meanwhile after American’s March 22 devaluation, the flight would cost 57,500 miles each way, which isn’t too bad compared to some of the other price increases.
American recently announced a joint venture with LATAM, where the airlines’ flights between the US and six countries in South America will operate as a joint venture (meaning there will be revenue sharing). I’m not surprised to see this route, given what a big market Los Angeles is. Furthermore, American operates flights between Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, so with this route being restarted, there will be nonstop service between Los Angeles and three markets in South America as part of the joint venture.
American 787 flying between Los Angeles and Sao Paulo
The other great thing about LAN flights out of LAX is that they depart from Tom Bradley International Terminal, which has some great lounges. Business class passengers can access the oneworld Business Class Lounge, while oneworld Emerald members can access the Qantas First Class Lounge.
Dining in the Qantas First Class Lounge Los Angeles
Bottom line
I’m excited to see LAN’s route between Los Angeles and Santiago relaunched, and will be watching carefully for award space. If LAN makes a good amount of award space available I’ll be sure to post about it again.
Would you consider taking LAN’s flight between Los Angeles and Santiago?
I remember when LAN CHILE was a luxury airline, the flight attendants were all highly educated, many were nurses and all Chileans. Nobody knew they existed & we enjoyed our airline, but then they fell into that "globalism" bull.... and now they hire foreigners, especially Argies and from Peru who can't speak English or Spanish properly, they are uneducated, rude & ugly. It seems that Ignacio Cueto (CEO) learned nothing about "globalism" and its effects...
I remember when LAN CHILE was a luxury airline, the flight attendants were all highly educated, many were nurses and all Chileans. Nobody knew they existed & we enjoyed our airline, but then they fell into that "globalism" bull.... and now they hire foreigners, especially Argies and from Peru who can't speak English or Spanish properly, they are uneducated, rude & ugly. It seems that Ignacio Cueto (CEO) learned nothing about "globalism" and its effects in Europe & the U.S.A. The last time I flew to Stgo. the "cholas" a.k.a. Peruvians at LAN desk "TOLD" the passengers that there was a 10 hr. delay due to some virus in Peru. On board, we had an Argie woman couldn't say "salmon", the trashy people from Latin America flying LAN is horrendous. Since Argies & the rest of the countries from Mexico to Antarctica don't have reliable airlines they all use LAN & we get to "enjoy" the screaming brats from the moment they board until landing & they have quite a few brats as it's customary with them; we get to breath that "aroma" of dirty diapers, etc. Passengers complaint to the untrained flight attendants who stand with their mouths open and do nothing. Chile is NOT an immigrants' country but they are coming from all over the world pretending to be "tourists" but forget to go back. We were always very careful with immigration and only hand picked professionals from England, Germany, northern Italy, Sweden & Switzerland were allowed, today my country is another cesspool just like Los Angeles, Watts, Miami, Harlem, India, Africa, the list is endless. I wish we could clone Mr. Trump.
how many days in advance does LAN release space for AA awards?
Good news for the joint venture. Does AA have plans to launch more routes from LA to Latin and South America (hope they'll build off of the São Paulo route)? Anyone with any knowledge, let me know.
@Jon - very reliable but only for 1-2 days after it becomes available. Then it disappears. YOU MUST BOOK RIGHT WHEN IT OPENS UP.
How reliable is LAN about releasing award space on these routes to South America, especially for booking with AA? Seems like AAdvantage is stingy with releasing space on their own metal at the Saver rate...