Planning a business trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil? LAN Chile Airlines has introduced a new flight that cuts out one of the three stops necessary along the way.
Options for flying from Sydney to Rio de Janeiro are limited. The quickest route available prior to this announcement was 26 hours total trip time with Qantas/LAN/TAM, flying Sydney - Auckland - Santiago - São Paulo - Rio de Janeiro.
Today's announcement cuts out the São Paulo stop and allows the entire flight to be booked via Qantas/LAN and cuts travel time down to 21 hours.
The new flight details
Flight LA800, LAN’s daily service from Sydney and Auckland (codeshared with Qantas QF321), arrives in Santiago at 11.40am.
It now connects quickly with new flight LA772, an Airbus A320 service departing Santiago just 45 minutes later, at 12.25pm and arriving in Rio at 5.35pm – a journey of 4 hours, 10 minutes.
The return flight, LA 773, departs Rio at 6.25pm, arriving in Santiago at 10.05pm, a flight of 4 hours, 45 minutes.
This connects smoothly with LAN flight LA 801 (codeshared with Qantas QF322), which departs Santiago 45 minutes later, at 10.50 each night, bound for Auckland and Sydney.
“Brazil is the largest country in South America, and one of the fastest growing in terms of both business and leisure travel,” said Patricio Aylwin, LAN’s General Manager Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
What LAN's oneworld membership means
LAN is a member of the oneworld global airline alliance, which means -- among other things -- that Qantas Frequent Flyer members flying on LAN can earn Qantas points and status credits.
For economy flights, the earning rate is equivalent to Qantas -- one point per mile flown. However, Qantas silver 50% / gold 75% /platinum 100% points-earning bonuses do not apply.
Premium economy, business and first class earning rates are better than most oneworld partner airlines, though not as high as flying on Qantas-marketed flights.
| Class | Qantas QF coded flight (QF points per mile) |
LAN LA coded flight (QF points per mile) |
| Economy | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Premium Economy | 1.25 | 1.10 |
| Business | 1.50 | 1.25 |
| First | 2.00 | 1.50 |
27 Jun 2012
Total posts 2
Dan
Have done Australia - Brazil twice in the past 2 months. Your story is only half correct. 3 days a week Qantas does a direct to Santiago (no stop in NZ) which connects to Brazil. Important to me because the QF flight has fab Premium Economy and Lan doesn't.
So you can do:
QF - Sydney Santiago
LAN code - Santiago to Sao Paulo (or Rio)
Regards
Nick
12 Jul 2012
Total posts 1
Hi Dan,
I 've just was wondering if 45" was long enough to make the connection in Santiago. I've bought a ticket Lima - Sydney - Lima through the website and I realised that only 1 hour is given to make the connection in Santiago to Sydney.
Cheers,
A
Hi Guest, join in the discussion on New flight cuts five hours off Sydney-Brazil travel time