This month, the well-known, world class airline Emirates announced their new flight operations to the capital city of Chile, Santiago.
The flight, EK263, will fly five times weekly to Santiago (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), via Sao Paulo, Brazil (SBGR/GRU). This flight is an addition to the current flight EK261 operated by the A380 to Guarulhos airport daily. The flight will leave Dubai at 9 in the morning local time, arriving in Sao Paulo at 5 in the afternoon, arriving in Santiago a little before ten at night. EK264 will depart Santiago at one in the morning, arriving just before 6 AM in Brazil, before leaving at 7:45 AM to the United Arab Emirates.
Emirates 263 will be operated by a Boeing 777-200LR in a two class configuration, with 264 seats in Economy and 38 in Business, in a 2-2-2 seat layout.
The flight will be inaugurated in the 5th of July, this year.
Sources (I apologise two of them are in spanish):
https://fly4.emirates.com/CAB/IBE/SelectPrice.aspx
My Opinion:
In my opinion, this is great news. Santiago keeps receiving new traffic every year. A new world class airline arriving in Santiago is great stuff, and I look forward to witnessing the Emirates 777-200LR parked here.
However, I think there are a few bad things. For starters, the outbound flight to Dubai from Santiago is a terrible flight, for the simple reason that it leaves at 1 AM, arriving at 6 in Sao Paulo (a 4 hour flight). The inbound flight is not too bad, but arriving at 21:40 is not very convenient for many people.
And also, you have to ask yourself if the airport can handle it. SCEL is already collapsed. During the morning rush, it is completely unbearable. It is not a very big airport, and the terminal is certainly not the best. Of course, this flight actually arrives during the night, but there is still a significant amount of traffic at that time. There is a new terminal under construction, but it is plagued with delays and is still a long time ahead.
So, what’s your opinion? Do you think this is a smart move?