As winter came to a close in our country, three of my friends and myself thought it would be great to go snowboarding in the Chilean and Argentinian Andes in August while the temperature would be climbing here. As the closest international airport to the resorts in both countries is Santiago de Chile we had to book a flight to this airport.

Air Comet (former Air Plus Comet) offered the cheapest fares and has the advantage of a baggage allowance in economy class of 32 kg. As we were carrying our snowboards and other weighty winter stuff this was an important point. We would take also a LAN flight from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina, and back.

Air Comet changed this year their logo and livery and introduced some Airbus planes, their aim being an all-Airbus fleet. Air Comet retired the old B747 frames and introduced three A343, two former Virgin Atlantic planes (former G-VAEL and G-VBUS, the latter from Virgin Nigeria) and one from Air Madrid (former Air France), which had the registration EC-JIS and is now EC-KHU. Also the former Air Madrid’s A332 were introduced and several A320 frames, these for European operations and substituting the MDs. Air Comet also took over most of Air Madrid’s routes and employees.

This trip to Santiago de Chile was on the A343 with registration EC-KHU, delivered on July 17th of this year. As the flight was on July 28th, it was one of the first commercial flights of this frame with Air Comet.

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Photo © Manuel Marin

On our departure from Madrid Barajas, boarding was done with a delay of more than 1 hour, almost at midnight, due to some maintenance check. The terminal T1, which still handles some of the non-Schengen flights (many of them depart already from T4), was completely empty by then. Only a Qatar A332 was departing from the same terminal at 10 pm.

As soon as we boarded I noticed that all of the seats were still those of Air France.

Departure was one and a half hour behind schedule. Air Comet does not feature any safety video, the safety procedures are shown manually before departure by the flight attendants.

View of the cabin:



This A340 features PTVs (Rockwell Collins systems) and Air Comet is using them, offering a choice of four 2006 movies, in both English and Spanish. Also the Airshow channel, with the real-time location of the aircraft on a map, speed, altitude and other info was available.

There were some surprises in the music channels and in the Airshow map channel. Some music channels were still from Air France, which means that they had been loaded more than two years ago. A voice said (in French ): “on behalf of Air France” or “music offered by NRJ” (NRJ is a French radio station). I even wondered if the four movies were still from the Air Madrid era.

Surprising was also to see the Air Madrid logo in the Airshow channel:



This channel was not available anymore on the return flight (which was on the same aircraft) so probably someone of the crew noticed this  

Also many signs were still in French. Trash was not written in Spanish, just in French (poubelle) and English!!

A meal was offered about 1 hour after departure. It was nothing special.



A small breakfast was offered 1 hour prior to our arrival, but it was not worth a picture.

It was a long, long flight, almost 14 hours. We flew over the Canaries, then over Fortaleza, Brasilia, and Asunción, towards Santiago de Chile.

Picture of the Airshow as we were entering Brazil:



Approaching the Andes:



Nice view, just in a few days’ time we would be somewhere there with our snowboards:





Three tails on this picture at Santiago after our landing: Swiss, Air France and Air Canada.



This is EC-KHU, our Air Comet plane, after deboarding:



There we are, in Santiago, but just for two days. We visited downtown Santiago: the Palacio de la Moneda (used by the Chilean government), Bellavista, Providencia, the Pre-Columbian Art Museum, among other places. On this picture, the cathedral in the Plaza de Armas.



After two days in Santiago we took a flight to Mendoza, Argentina, and from there a bus to Malargüe, close to the ski resort of Las Leñas.

View of the terminal in Santiago. We used the check-in machines to print our boarding cards and avoid long lines.





The flight to Mendoza was on CC-COD, one of LAN’s A320. It was a very short flight, just 35 minutes.

These were some of LAN’s aircrafts on that afternoon that could be seen from the terminal (July 30th):







Safety video is shown:



After a short flight, again with a nice view of the Andes, we arrived at Mendoza, which is one of these airports with just one single jetbridge. Traffic is very low at this airport, with only a few flights to Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile.

We deboarded via stairs, the flight had finally a delay of two hours, and the jetway was occupied by another aircraft.



We took a six-hour ride bus from Mendoza to Malargüe, a small city 70 km away from Las Leñas, an Argentinian ski resort.

View of the village, where our hotel was located:



And we had a lot of snow there. That’s me:



We took this bus daily, from Malargüe to Las Leñas, during the first six days of August. The bus needs tyre chains:


Not too good weather during the first days:





But then we had lots of sun and snow:









On August 7th, it was time to return to Chile:

At Mendoza again, and this time we would board our A320 (registration CC-COI) back to Santiago de Chile:



Inside the cabin:



Again a nice view of the Andes:



In Santiago de Chile we rented a car with GPS, and visited Valparaiso, the beaches and the ski resorts of Portillo and El Colorado.

Valparaiso:





Viña del Mar (high appartment towers):



Beaches (too much rain):



Road to Portillo ski resort:









El Colorado Ski resort:





On August 13th we headed back to Spain, here EC-KHU in Santiago de Chile, ready for our return. Not much to tell about this flight, again the same four movies. This flight was extremely punctual, as we departed and arrived on time.





Bye, Andes!!! (the fourth time crossing the Andes in two weeks)