Southwest Airlines and South Korea's Air Premia announced a new interline partnership on Wednesday, meaning travelers can now book a single ticket that connects Air Premia's transpacific routes with Southwest's domestic network across more than 120 US destinations.
The deal went live immediately. Tickets are available now through Air Premia, travel agencies and booking websites.
The connection points are Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu, cities where both airlines operate.
A traveler flying Air Premia from Seoul's Incheon Airport can now land in LA or San Francisco or Honolulu and connect to Southwest flights to Las Vegas, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Portland, Nashville or dozens of other US cities on a single reservation, with bags checked through and a single booking process.
It works the other direction too. American travelers can combine a Southwest domestic leg with an Air Premia international flight to Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok or other Air Premia destinations in Asia.
Note that US customs rules require inbound international passengers to claim bags and clear customs at their first US port of entry before re-checking onto Southwest.
Air Premia is a hybrid carrier, think of it as the South Korean version of something between a full-service airline and a budget carrier, that has built a small but growing transpacific network on Boeing 787 widebodies since launching in 2022.
The Southwest partnership gives it access to a domestic US network it could never replicate on its own. Southwest gets another international feeder bringing passengers to its Hawaii and West Coast hubs. Air Premia becomes Southwest's ninth interline partner.