DIRECT SANTIAGO SERVICE

IT’S about to get a whole lot easier for Aussie travellers to reach South America with LATAM Airlines announcing direct flights between Sydney and Santiago.

The new non-stop service will start on October 27 and include three direct flights a week between Sydney and the Chilean capital, with another four hops continuing to go via Auckland.

“The non-stop Santiago-Sydney flight will further improve the connectivity we offer between South America, Australia and Asia as we continue to adapt our network to meet the needs of our passengers on both sides of the Pacific,” says LATAM  chief commercial officer Roberto Alvo.

Flight LA803 will depart Santiago at 1.30am local time on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday before arriving at Sydney just after 6am the following day with a flight time of almost 15 hours.

The return journey on LA802 will take off from Sydney at 10am local time on Monday, Thursday and Sunday with a little over 13 hours in the sky seeing the aircraft touch town at 9.15am on the same day thanks to that jaunt across the International Date Line.

And the journey will be done in the innovative Boeing 787-900 with LATAM now flying its fleet of Dreamliners across the Pacific.