Southwest Airlines Forms Another Partnership: Korea’s Air Premia

Southwest has teamed up with yet another foreign carrier, Air Premia, to help its passengers more easily connect between South Korea and the U.S. domestic network.

“Air Premia becomes our latest partner in a portfolio that not only provides more potential global travel options for Southwest Customers, [but] it also exposes more marketplaces overseas to our unmatched network in the United States and our world-famous Hospitality,” said Andrew Watterson, chief operating officer at Southwest.

Let’s take a look at what this new partnership means for you.

Southwest Signs Interline Agreement With Air Premia

Southwest Airlines has inked a new interline agreement with Air Premia, South Korea’s hybrid service carrier, marking the first time a Korean airline has entered into such an agreement with the largest domestic carrier in the U.S.

Being an interline agreement, there are no opportunities for reciprocal loyalty benefits or earning/redeeming miles. That only happens with a codeshare partnership. What this partnership does include, though, is the ability to book a single ticket spanning both airlines and check bags all the way to your final destination.

Southwest and Air Premia overlap at 3 West Coast gateways: Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), and Honolulu (HNL). Travelers flying in from South Korea can connect at any of these 3 airports to reach Southwest destinations with limited or no nonstop service from Korea, including Las Vegas (LAS), Chicago (MDW), Houston (HOU), Phoenix (PHX), Denver (DEN), Portland (PDX), and Nashville (BNA).

The baggage rules run 1 direction, and it’s worth understanding why before you book. U.S. entry regulations require anyone arriving from South Korea and connecting onward to claim checked bags and clear customs at their first port of entry, so inbound Air Premia passengers connecting to a Southwest flight will need to grab their bags at LAX, SFO, or HNL and recheck them.

Go the other direction, though, and it’s more convenient: Passengers connecting from a Southwest domestic flight onto an Air Premia international flight can check their bags straight through to their final stop in Korea or beyond.

Tickets covering these new interline itineraries are on sale as of today, July 8, through travel agencies and online booking channels.

“This partnership significantly expands travel opportunities for our customers, providing seamless access to more than 120 destinations across the Southwest network,” said Yoo Myung-sub, CEO of Air Premia. “We look forward to expanding this partnership and delivering even greater convenience and value to travelers across the Pacific.”

Air Premia is a relatively young carrier, having launched its first international route in July 2022, but it’s carved out a niche flying long-haul routes that most low-cost carriers skip while keeping fares below what full-service airlines charge. It currently serves Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., Honolulu, and Tokyo, and this new tie-up with Southwest gives it a much deeper bench of onward U.S. connections than it could offer on its own.

Southwest’s Growing Roster of International Partners

Air Premia is the latest addition to the partnership portfolio Southwest has been steadily building over the past couple of years. The list now includes China Airlines, Condor Airlines, EVA Air, Icelandair, Philippine Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines, ANA, and Air Premia, giving Southwest flyers interline access to Asia, Europe, and beyond without needing to piece together separate tickets or manage multiple reservations.

On its own, Air Premia already has interline agreements in place with Korean Air, Thai Airways, and T’way Air, so this deal with Southwest fits into a broader pattern of the carrier stitching together connections it can’t yet fly nonstop. For Southwest, the appeal runs the other way: Partnerships like this one expose its enormous U.S. network to travelers in South Korea and the wider East Asian market who might otherwise never consider booking a flight on Southwest.

None of these agreements currently extends past interline status, so mileage earning and elite benefits aren’t part of the deal with any of these carriers yet. But the pace at which Southwest has been adding partners suggests the airline sees real value in offering its customers more international reach, and it wouldn’t be surprising if at least a few of these relationships deepen into something closer to a codeshare down the line.

Final Thoughts

Southwest has expanded its portfolio of foreign partners with the addition of Air Premia, giving passengers of both airlines a more convenient way to connect between South Korea and U.S. cities that currently offer little or no nonstop service from Korea.

We look forward to seeing which carrier Southwest will team up with next.