LATAM Airlines will be adding more flights between Melbourne and Santiago de Chile, increasing its current service from three to four nonstop flights a week from 4 December 2024.
Melbourne airport said it was excited to see LATAM meeting the strong demand for travel to South America, providing a direct link for passengers and Victorian exporters to Chile and beyond through their extensive network.
LATAM resumed their Melbourne-Santiago service in September 2023 following a lengthy Covid hiatus.
The carrier’s Sydney operations were also paused in April 2020 due to the pandemic, with flights from Sydney via Auckland to Santiago restarting in March 2022, and a new nonstop service from Sydney to the capital of Chile set to launch in October 2024.
LATAM’s Australia flights are operated by Boeing 787-9 aircraft, seating 30 in business class and up to 283 in economy class.
LATAM has two 787-9 cabin configurations, one with the new 1-2-1 seating in business class, and the older with a 2-2-2 configured business cabin.
In other updates from Melbourne airport, earlier this month the airport welcomed Vietjet’s inaugural flight from Hanoi, complementing the carrier’s flights from Ho Chi Minh City.
The Vietnamese market has grown by 60 per cent from pre pandemic levels, and last year that meant an average of 339 Victorians jetted off to Vietnam every single day.
Prior to the pandemic there were just 10 flights a week to Vietnam with the new Vietjet A330 service to Hanoi that number now has more than doubled to 21 per week.
