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During its investor day yesterday, Southwest announced plans for many changes. It plans to massively shrink its operation at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) (more here), is assigning seats and premium seating, and will be adding airline partners. The first of these partners has just been revealed: Icelandair.
Southwest is now looking to build a global network. Icelandair will serve as a good first partner to help with connectivity to Europe and Southwest is looking to add a second in 2025. With the addition of partners, it looks to be able to get its passengers to more destinations as well as to provide Rapid Rewards members with additional earning and redemption opportunities.
Icelandair and Southwest will initially partner through Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI). European passengers will now have access to flights across the United States and a codeshare arrangement is expected. There are not too many details yet around all of the elements of the partnership.
In the release covering the changes coming to Southwest, it describes its global partnerships as follows:
Global Airline Partnerships: Southwest is formalizing partnerships with international carriers to expand its network and connect Customers with more global destinations to generate additional demand for travel across the Southwest network. Icelandair will become Southwest’s initial partner with an expected launch in 2025 through Baltimore-Washington International Airport, which will serve as its first U.S. gateway for the carriers. The Icelandair partnership will expand gateways throughout 2025, and Southwest intends to add at least one additional partner carrier next year.”
Anthony’s Take: Southwest is on course to completely reinvent itself. Adding global partners makes sense to fuel growth. I’m looking forward to seeing what other carriers join its makeshift alliance.
(Image Credits: Michael Evans and Southwest.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
