Exploring Icelandair’s 5 New Airline Partners

The flag carrier of Iceland has long been known for capitalizing on its location to provide an innovative stopover experience and link North America to Europe and beyond. This year alone, Icelandair added five new codeshare partners, further expanding the number of places people can visit on a single booking.

Atlantic Airways

Last month, Icelandair announced two new codeshare partners at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik. The first of which is Atlantic Airways. The flag carrier of the Faroe Islands is a crucial player in the Arctic region, and the new agreement is set to boost connectivity and access for travelers from North America and beyond.

Given Atlantic Airways’ small footprint outside Northern Europe, the islands have historically been quite hard to access, so Icelandair hopes that the new agreement will help passengers from around the world reach the Arechplegio with greater ease. Speaking exclusively to Simple Flying, Icelandair’s Chief Commercial Officer Tómas Ingason revealed the carrier’s existing service to the Faroe Islands is already a hit:

“We are quite happy with last summer, many more Americans actually came and visited the Faroes because of the direct connection in Keflavik.

“We’re just proud of that cooperation and proud of being able to open up these somewhat niche markets, similar to what Iceland was maybe 20-25 years ago.”

The two airlines expect the codeshare to be fully implemented in the first quarter of 2025, pending IOSA certification.

Air Greenland

One of the trendiest destinations for the coming year is Greenland, which is set to open a new international gateway later this month. The airport in the capital city of Nuuk (GOH), an Air Greenland hub, has long been constrained by a short runway, which prohibits the type of larger aircraft needed for long-haul routes. That is all set to change at the end of November when the new runway extension opens up the airport to the world.

While Icelandair has long served several airports in neighboring Greenland, the new agreement will help streamline the service and provide connection opportunities via its hub in Keflavik International Airport (KEF), with the Nuuk link being upgauged to the Boeing 737 Max next summer. For Ingason, the new partnerships with Atlantic and Air Greenland are the perfect complement to the carrier’s iconic stopover program:

“These two airlines are quite close to us. They are kind of sister nations of ours, right beside us here [in the North Atlantic], and we think Keflavik, our hub in Iceland, is really the optimal location to connect these smaller markets into our big network of North American and European destinations.”

Up to one in five of the airline’s passengers take advantage of its complimentary stopover program, which allows customers to break their trip with a stay of up to a week in Iceland on the way. An Icelandic stopover can even make the overall ticket more affordable, as each leg of the trip is priced individually.

TAP Air Portugal

Speaking of stopover programs, Icelandair’s next codeshare partner has a robust stopvoer program of its own. Last month, the airline confirmed it is launching a codeshare with longstanding partner TAP Air Portugal in conjunction with its new link to Lisbon Airport (LIS).

There has been such a strong demand for Lisbon flights that the carrier decided to offer year-round services instead of seasonal winter flights as initially planned.

With the new codeshare agreement, passengers from either carrier can now connect between the airlines’ networks in one ticket with their luggage checked all the way to their final destination.

Southwest Airlines

For its first airline partner, Southwest Airlines chose to work with Icelandair. While Icelandair already partners with Alaska Airlines and JetBlue in the United States, their networks are focused mainly on the east and west coasts, respectively. On the other hand, Southwest Airlines serves almost 120 destinations in North America.

The first gateway where the two airlines are set to interline will be Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), with additional locations expected to come online in the future. One plausible option is Nashville, an airport from which Southwest has a significant network and the next Icelandair destination in the US.

The partnership has been coming for a long time. According to Ingason, the carriers have a long history and shared corporate culture that will help the bilateral partnership thrive:

“We are quite humbled that Southwest chose us as the first airline partner to partner with in an industry-standard way.

“We actually have a history of about 30 years ago, we did try out kind of a manual partnership with Southwest, actually in Baltimore as well, which is going to be the first gateway that we do the interlining through.

“We’ve been conversing for a while, and it wouldn’t really have happened, I think, if it wasn’t for a meeting of kindred spirits in terms of culture and cooperation, and that’s what we look for in partnerships.”

The recently announced agreement with Southwest has been in the works for over three years, according to Ingason.

Emirates

The first codeshare partner that Icelandair announced this year was Emirates, Icelandair’s 7th global airline partner at the time. The partnership will open up opportunities for passengers to connect seamlessly across the Gulf carrier’s vast network once direct flights are established between Dubai and Iceland.