LAN airlines recently introduced a direct flight from Melbourne to Santiago, Chile, shaving about 5 hours travel time from the alternative route via Sydney. Business Class is full, so the route seems to have been greeted with alacrity. I’m on my way to Ushuaia via Santiago and Buenos Aires, to board Ponant’s Le Lyrial for the South Atlantic crossing to Cape Town.
LA804 departs more or less on time at 21:40, making it a ‘sleep first, eat later’ routing. My seatmate is a Chilean who has been married to an Australian for 30 years, and is very happy that this route connects to Perth, as she has been accustomed to travelling it with 3 small children. Given the route when she started travelling used to involve flying to Easter Island, then Noumea or Vanuatu, then an east cost Australian city, then Perth, she is loving the direct path!
LA804 is a new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, with an interior colour scheme reflecting LATAM’s corporate colours of dark grey with red highlights. The cabin crew are attentive and at least bi-lingual, if not tri or quad-lingual. The lie-flat seat isn’t particularly comfortable in a lie-flat position due to a hard ridge where the seat connects to the upper leg rest, but improves on a 150 degree angle. The 2-2-2 arrangement of seats makes aisle seats the best choice if you want to avoid climbing over your seatmate, and the middle configuration is best due to direct aisle access on either side.
A smart black and white striped amenities kit is issued, larger than usual, which highlights how empty it is – toothpaste and brush, some moisturiser and lip balm, socks and eye mask, and a pen. The pen is always a welcome inclusion, but LAN seems to have scaled back on the other toiletries, which used to include a mirror as well.
I’ve slept through dinner, so breakfast is the only meal I can comment on – which was perfectly fine. I also slept through handing in my breakfast order, which wasn’t a problem either.
The flight lands a little early in Santiago, just after 8pm. Australians pay a $US117 reciprocity fee, for which the line is short – only 2 people ahead of me, and the credit card machines are working for payment, and also accept American Express! The lines for immigration are also short, and it is a very quick path through to baggage claim.
My hotel for the next 3 nights is The Aubrey, a restored mansion in Bellavista, with 15 rooms. They have arranged a driver for me, who is patiently waiting in the throng at Santiago arrivals. It is a relatively quick 45 minutes from the airport to the hotel.
My room at The Aubrey is a ‘splurge’, with a patio room beautifully decorated in this restored mansion.
One Comment
Have heard a lot of positive things about the Dreamliner. Very quiet and plenty of space.