Airport, Santiago

There are a few ways to get to the airport.
None take very long and are not expensive.
A taxi from Santiago Centro (downtown) will cost between 7500 and 10,000 pesos ($15 US) You should not have to pay more than 10000!! for a taxi.
There are also buses that run form Santiago Centro to the airport. The cost is 1200 pesos ($2.00 US)
The trip takes about 45 minutes.
By car on the expressway the trip is about 30 minutes.

The airport buses are run by Centropuerto or Tur Bus. The Centropuerto bus costs 1200 pesos one way. They leave from in front of the arrivals area of the airport terminal and stop at the Pajaritos metro station where you can transfer to the metro or a taxi to take you to your final destination.

From Santiago the best place is to take a metro to Pajaritos station on the number 1 line and catch the Centropuerto bus from there. You can buy your ticket on the bus.

Excellent choose for going to the airport to the city, you will find the counter on the pick up baggage, will cost 7000 Chilean pesos. It is like a pool car, they live each one on the direction asked.

Excelente opción para ir del aeropuerto a la ciudad, usted encontrará el mostrador en el área de las maletas, costará 7000 Pesos chilenos.

When we first arrived at the airport, we looked for shuttles run by Transfer, TransVip or Trans City. Unfortunately, we didn't look hard enough and ended up paying $25 for a taxi to take us to Providencia.
On our next trip to Santiago, we found an open TransVip counter. For 7400 pesos/$12, we were shuttled to our B&B in Providencia. A much better deal.
When returning to the airport from Providencia, the owner of our B&B called a RadioTaxi for us. It arrived at the appointed time and delivered us to the airport for 6000 pesos. I dont know if you can call RadioTaxi from the airport to take you into town.

I had booked a trip organised by the Dutch Travel agency Djoser (www.djoser.nl), so the flight was in the package.

At first it was a 4 weeks trip but I extended the trip by one week, as I also wanted to visit Easter Island while I was in Santiago.

My flight schedule :

July 12th : Schiphol Amsterdam - Ch De Gaulle Paris (dep 20.50, arr 22.05)
July 13th : Ch. De Gaulle Paris - Santiago (dep 23.15, arr 7.25)

The return flight was also with Air France, but from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Service on board was excellent and very friendly, with Champagne as aperitif and a good meal.

Flight time from Paris to Santiago was indeed 14 hours (quiet long)

I arranged for transportation to the hotel by calling the hotel and requesting a car. I am glad I did. It is a long trip into Santiago, and my Spanish is very poor. I was greeted by a driver in a suit with my name on a sign. He assisted me in getting my luggage into the car, and we drove to Santiago in comfort. They nearly all drive late-model Saabs in gray. Every one I used was professional and courteous.

Like is several countries Santiago decided to build there airport in the country side in the middle if nowhere !!!! As soon as you exist the customs area directly in front of it... there are shuttle bus service into the city. Taxi's usually run about $35-$40 US into the city and the shuttle bus about $8 US....most drop you off at your hotel or busy intersection throughout the city where various forms of transportation are available !!!!

Transfer with transfer - it is convenient and affordable, USD8 per person, to a location of your choice. I find the drivers a bit too forward though demanding their tip: "Thank you for the tip" before the tip has been on offer. You've gotta do what you've gotta do and time passes so quickly, anyway...

TAX! 2010 FEB ; the costs to the centre of Santiago are around 16,000p to 20,000p which at £1=800p $1=500 adds up. We had a trip from the airport which was 15,000p but our return journey was 20,000p. There are better options related to costs but with heavy bags taxis may be the better choice.

Paul Hudson

A really cheap way to get to town is to use a combination of the Centropuerto buses (2,500 CLP for the round trip, purchased on board) and various metro stops between Pajaritos and Heores (Line 1, I believe). It only takes about 15-20 minutes to get to Pajaritos, where we caught the metro to get to our hotel. Pajaritos is also the stop where you can catch the long distance buses (such as Pullman or Turbus).

The metro is also quite convenient and very economical. The fare (assuming you don't have the card) depends on the hour of travel and cost roughly 500 clp per trip. We would have used this more, unfortunately, there was a general strike when we were in town so the trains were running on a holiday schedule with reduced services.

One advice is that if you are catching the bus back to the airport, try to get on at Heores so you can secure a luggage spot (about a 45 minute ride). The stop is actually sort of hard to find - for us anyway. We mistakenly thought that the centropuerto bus actually stops where the city buses were and ended up walking around for 20 minutes looking for it. We finally found the bus stop (a nondescript post in the island (?) right across from the metro station. I am including a picture of the "station" just in case.