The Costa Rican Tourism Institute announced the opening of a direct air connection between Costa Rica and Peru, the first direct connection to South America.

The LATAM flight between San José, Costa Rica and Lima, Peru will facilitate connections to other South American countries.

LATAM Airlines Group S.A. is a South American airline holding company incorporated under Chilean law and headquartered in Santiago, Chile. This route to their first Central American destination will begin on January 2, 2018.

The service will include three weekly flights on the Lima-San José route on an A320 aircraft with a 220-passenger capacity.

Mauricio Ventura, Minister of Tourism, said this latest new route is thanks to the strategy geared towards attracting airlines implemented under his tenure to aid in attracting more visitors to the country.

The Lima route will provide easy connections to such destinations as Santiago de Chile (SCL), Buenos Aires, Argentina (BUE) and Sao Paulo, Brazil (SAO). Other connections with Montevideo, Uruguay (MVD), Asunción, Paraguay (ASU), Córdoba (COR), Rosario (ROS) and Mendoza (MDZ) in Argentina will also be facilitated by the new service.

One flight in each direction will operate on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays with the following schedule:

– LA2502: Departing Lima at 12:50 p.m. and arriving in San José at 3:55 p.m.

– LA2503: Departing San José at 4:45 p.m. and arriving in Lima at 9:25 p.m.

Last year Costa Rica received 145,498 international arrivals by air from South America, a 12 percent increase over 2015.

LATAM Airlines Group is the leading group of Latin American airlines offering air services to around 140 destinations in 25 countries. The airline runs domestic flights in several South American countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, in addition to its international operations in Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Oceania and Africa.

The group employs more than 44,000 people worldwide, operates more than 1,300 flights a day and transports 67 million passengers a year, according to data from the airline.

In 2016, the airline was recognized for the third consecutive year in the Dow Jones Sustainability “World” Index, based on economic, social and environmental criteria.