Transfer Times in Chile Airport
 

I'm looking at flying into Santiago from Mendoza arriving at 11.55. Will I have time to transfer and catch a flight from Santiago to Calama for a flight a 13.42?

Both flights will be with LATAM.

I've never been to Santiago and I don't know how smooth the transfer is.

Probably enough time, but cutting it close. The immigration lines have been not pleasant on my last few visits, and the arrivals have been at various hours of the day. If you are on the same ticket, you should be ok. Your bag will be tagged through, and after customs, you just go upstairs and drop it off and go through security on the national flights side.

Thank you so much!

Hi guys!
I will be travelling to Chile soon and right now I am preparing the itinerary. During the process I came across a question for which I couldn't find the answer yet. I hope you guys can help me with this.
So I saw a lot of topics about the MCT (minimum connection time) between international and domestic flights in SCL but none of them was about the domestic - domestic MCT.
Can you maybe help me out with this question?
We will be flying from Punta Arenas to Santiago and then from Santiago to Calama where we would have around 1.5 hours layover in SCL. Is it enough to change from domestic flight to domestic flight if we assume that they won't have any delay? Does that make any difference if we are travelling both with Sky and LATAM?
Unfortunately I already asked this question, but in a wrong topic, so now I am trying again, sorry for the duplication.
Thank you very much for your help!

If you are changing airlines on separate tickets, you'll need to collect your bags, re-check your bags with airline 2, and go through security. 1.5 hours should work if you are on time. SCL is overcrowded and you could end up with bus gates, delaying your arrival time to the terminal. The wait for your luggage shouldn't be too bad. Your connecting flight should have had online check-in (or there will be kiosks) and you'll just need bag drop. I wouldn't do this in less than 2 hours, but 1.5 might, just might work. Security lines aren't typically bad.

Thank you for your answer!
We won't have any checked in luggage, so hopefully we can make it.

Just did something really similar to this, went from Punta Arenas to SCL to La Serena. The answer is yes you'll have enough time provided your flights is on time out of Punta Arenas. We flew Sky Airlines out and they were late (which I believe is fairly typical for them) so even though we had an hour between connections, we were unable to make it. Otherwise the domestic terminal in SCL isn't that big and you can make it to any gate within five minutes or so.

LATAM rescheduled us, thankfully, for a later flight even though the delay was not caused by them.

ETA: I'm not sure how big your luggage is, but ours was bigger than what Sky traditionally allowed. We showed them our tight connection schedule and they allowed us to bring ours on board. Our luggage is carry-on sized for US domestic carriers.

Before I saw your warning, I was going to post a similar caveat. Expect strict enforcement by the hand luggage police @ SCL, and throughout Chile. This will be size and weight enforcement. You may see the "police" wandering around the gate area, perhaps with a box the size of the maximum permitted size. You will see sizers by the gates with built-in scales.

Yep experienced that with LATAM, one time they made both us of check or luggage, the next flight just my husband had to check his bag, and one of the flights neither one of us had to check our luggage.

Thank you guys for all your help!
I'm glad you have experience with this kind of connection and it looks manageable.
Regarding our luggage, it should be okay, the sizes are within the limitations of the european carriers, hopefully it will be okay with the south american ones as well. If they have some problem with them, we'll try to play our tight connection card as well.

Hi,

I'll arrive in SCL at 09:15 with a non stop TATL flight and the only option for BBA is SKY at 10:50 (LA is even 10:45 and the price is crazy). Probably I'll have one checked baggage to collect from my arriving flight and to drop off for my BBA flight. I see the Intl.-->Dom. MCT is 1:30h.
Do you think It's doable or is too risky?

Thanks

The arrival time is during the morning crush at immigration, bag pickup and customs which could be heavy or could be more normal depending... 1.5 hours is way too short, unless you can afford to potentially lose the domestic flight (fail to get rebooked after missing bag check cutoff time and the flight itself and begging for leniency) and pony up for perhaps next day's near last minute counter fare, plan to stay in Santiago for the day.

Also, check LATAM prices using the Chile website which has the lowest LATAM fare buckets for Chile domestic flights.

I'm still doing it but NOW appeared the LA flight at 10:00 at a ridiculous cheap price (while the 10:45 is almost ten times more expensive...strange logic) and technically AZ and LA have baggage interline agreement but in this case would be even worse with only 45' time :D
I'm both ST Elite and OWS, may it help to jump directly on the plane with this carzy plan? :D :D

p.s. do you know when does check-in close? I only found this very useful information... :rolleyes: https://helpdesk.latam.com/hc/en-us/...t-for-my-trip-

Not enough time.

I have never seen a special line for elites at incoming immigration, there is usually a crew/APEC officials line, residents/citizens line and a foreigner line. At customs, all bags get X-rayed. I believe most flights close at 30 minutes and there is no separate bag drop after customs like say in the US. You must take the elevator to the departure level and do the back drop at the counter. You can check-in online at T-48 or there are numerous self-check kiosks at the check-in level, then find the appropriate line for the bag drop, go through domestic security, get to your gate. Not enough time.

Clear enough.
Also not enough time with only hand baggage?