LATAM Airlines has pushed back its plans to resume non-stop Melbourne-Santiago flights by over a month, with 1 September 2023 now pencilled in as the route’s restart date.

A former Oneworld member and still a partner airline of Qantas, LATAM Airlines first began flying direct from Melbourne to Santiago in October 2017. But the route has not operated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chile-based LATAM resumed flights on its Sydney-Auckland-Santiago route in March 2022 after two years without any regular direct flights between Australia or New Zealand and South America. Qantas resumed its Sydney-Santiago services in October 2022.

Qantas and LATAM Airlines codeshare on each other’s services between Australia, New Zealand and Chile.

You can read an AFF member trip report of LATAM Airlines’ (pre-COVID) Economy Class experience from Melbourne to Santiago here.

LATAM Airlines’ Melbourne-Santiago route resumption

LATAM Airlines had previously planned to resume its direct Melbourne-Santiago flights from 17 July 2023. But Aeroroutes reports that the airline has now cancelled all flights until 1 September 2023. Further changes are possible, but LATAM Airlines is currently selling seats on all flights from September.

The route will operate 3x weekly using Boeing 787 Dreamliners, with the following schedule:

• LA804 Melbourne 11:25 – Santiago 11:20 (same day)
• LA805 Santiago 00:55 – Melbourne 04:30 (+1 day)

Qantas sells codeshare seats on these flights as QF5027 & QF5028.

(Lack of) Capacity to South America

Before COVID-19, the following direct flights were available between Australia, New Zealand and South America:

• 4x weekly Sydney-Santiago 747 flights on Qantas
• Daily Sydney-Auckland-Santiago 787 flights on LATAM Airlines (from November 2019 until March 2020, 3 weekly SYD-SCL flights operated without the Auckland stopover)
• 3x weekly Melbourne-Santiago 787 flights on LATAM Airlines
• 5x weekly Auckland-Buenos Aires 777 flights on Air New Zealand

Unfortunately, since then, Qantas has switched to a smaller aircraft on the Sydney-Santiago route. And Air New Zealand has permanently ended Buenos Aires services. As a result, only 51% of the number of pre-COVID seats are currently available on direct flights from Australia or New Zealand to South America.

Once LATAM’s Melbourne-Santiago route resumes, 66% of the pre-COVID capacity to South America will have returned. But that’s still a third of seats that have been removed from the market… which explains why airfares to South America right now are considerably more expensive than they were in 2019.

In December 2019, the Chilean government axed the USD117 reciprocity charged to Australians entering Chile. However, Chile has since introduced a visa requirement for Australian visitors to the country.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.