Having flown last week from my home in Argentina to the UK, this seems an appropriate time for one of my more prosaic blogs which does what it says on the tin: in this case, telling you more about new flights to Argentina, and specifically the north west where I live.
A couple of weeks ago, after the far too long post-Covid hiatus, Copa Airlines returned to Salta with direct flights from Panama: a particularly good option for those visitors of ours coming from the US or Canada.
Flights leave Panama city mid-afternoon on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, arriving in Salta just after midnight. Return flights from Salta leave at 2am every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They take around six hours.
Salta airport is blessed with up to 19 flights per day, including international connections to the Peruvian capital of Lima and Asuncion in Paraguay.
Latam flies to and from Lima three times a week (currently Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday): this is the route we took last year on our way to Europe to visit friends in Cusco’s sacred valley.
And Paranair has twice weekly flights from Asuncion to Salta (Wednesday and Saturday).
The Paranair flights only take an hour and a half to Salta, quicker than flights from Buenos Aires. Looking online, flights are currently around US$100 and US$150 per leg.
They also allow 23 kilos of luggage, as it’s an international flight, whereas most airlines around the world charge extra for anything over a small carry-on rucksack.
That’s what I recently took on my flying visit back to the UK: all the major airlines, even Latam, now seem to charge for every item of luggage, but Paranair don’t!
They only operate in South America, but watch this space in case they expand: in the meantime, it’s worth checking international flights to Asuncion, as well as Santiago de Chile and Montevideo in Uruguay to see how they compare to Buenos Aires.
Locally, Salta airport has direct connections with Mendoza, Iguazu, Cordoba, Santa Fe and Neuquen, plus many flights direct to Ezeiza international airport which avoid the Uber from airport to airport through busy city traffic.
Jujuy airport, gateway to the colourful canyon of the Quebrada de Humahuaca and on into Bolivia and Chile, also has a service to Asuncion, on Thursdays & Sundays, as I reported on my blog a year ago.
Compared to Salta, it has a meagre seven flights per day, but Jujuy also has daily links to Ezeiza, and occasionally to Cordoba.
So when you’re planning your holiday in Argentina, it’s certainly worth looking around for flight bargains.
I always use Skyscanner to check all the options, and then book direct with the airline, never through an intermediary website.
There is also currently a proposal to re-open El Palomar, a mainly military airport used by many low budget operators like FlyBondi and Jetsmart after opening in 2018 under the Macri government: another initiative which fell by the wayside during Covid.
