Southwest Airways’ brand-new partnership with Icelandair is formally reside and obtainable for reserving — however be warned, it will be a bit restricted in the intervening time.
Starting Thursday, clients are in a position to guide itineraries that includes connections between Southwest and Icelandair by way of Southwest’s sturdy station at Baltimore/Washington Worldwide Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).
Which means you may begin a visit with a flight on a Southwest jet and join seamlessly — each you and your luggage — to an Icelandair flight to Keflavik Airport (KEF) in Reykjavik. From there, you may even proceed onward, on the identical itinerary, to extra locations in Europe.
The launch of its first airline partnership, for which TPG witnessed the formal signing earlier this yr in Washington, D.C., is a significant step for Southwest.
“This is a vital milestone in our plan to increase how and the place our clients can journey,” Southwest’s govt vp Ryan Inexperienced stated final month on the service’s earnings name.
A slender partnership — at first
As talked about, the partnership — generally known as an interline settlement — shall be pretty slender from the outset.
In the intervening time, you’ll be able to solely guide Southwest-Icelandair itineraries utilizing Icelandair’s web site and a few third-party on-line reserving providers.
You can also’t earn or redeem Fast Rewards factors on these abroad itineraries simply but.
That is set to alter in 2026 when Southwest’s shift to assigned seating goes reside. At that time, you can guide flights to Iceland and on to Europe by Southwest’s reserving channels.
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And you can pay money and earn Fast Rewards factors on these bookings, or redeem factors on your journey — a shift that must be an enormous enhance for the utility of Southwest’s factors.
Learn extra: Southwest quietly unveils A-Checklist perks for brand spanking new assigned-seating setup
Learn how to guide by the Southwest-Icelandair partnership
Within the meantime, although, we wish to present you methods to guide a Southwest-Icelandair itinerary underneath the partnership because it stands proper now.
Flights to Iceland
Beginning with Icelandair’s web site, for instance I wish to take a March spherical journey from Dallas Love Discipline (DAL) — Southwest’s dwelling airport — to KEF.
As you’ll be able to see, Icelandair’s web site presents up an itinerary that includes one leg from DAL to BWI aboard Southwest, adopted by a connecting flight over to Icelandair for the BWI-to-KEF leg of the journey.
Reserving flights to Europe
You can too technically guide an itinerary to Europe by this partnership, although it might not be probably the most environment friendly option to get throughout the Atlantic; on high of constructing a cease at KEF, you’d additionally should undergo BWI (in the intervening time, at the very least).
Here is a visit that begins at Chicago’s Halfway Worldwide Airport (MDW) on Southwest and ends at London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR).
You’d fly on Southwest to Baltimore earlier than connecting over to Icelandair for the Reykjavik flight. As soon as at KEF, you may make a regular connection earlier than the ultimate leg to Europe — or spend a day or two (or extra) in Iceland as a part of a stopover; you’ll be able to slot in stopovers of as much as seven days.
Growth of partnership coming quickly
Much less circuitous itineraries to Europe by this partnership ought to emerge because the airways carry new Southwest bases on-line. Proper now, the partnership is concentrated solely on connections at BWI, however that can increase to Denver Worldwide Airport (DEN) and Nashville Worldwide Airport (BNA) within the not-too-distant future.
“Then we’ll consider issues from there,” Inexperienced informed TPG final month.
Backside line
Southwest’s new partnership with Icelandair is formally reside and obtainable for bookings by way of Icelandair’s web site and a few third-party websites. Although it is restricted proper now (and never obtainable but for Fast Rewards earnings or redemptions), it will increase considerably over the course of the following yr.
Throughout that point, Southwest additionally plans to announce a second worldwide airline companion, so keep tuned.
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