Singapore Airlines opens one-ticket path to 120 US cities

Singapore Airlines and Dallas-based Southwest Airlines have opened an interline partnership, letting travelers from Vietnam and across Asia book a single ticket from Changi Airport to nearly 120 U.S. cities.

Southwest said in a news release that the two airlines unveiled the deal June 8 at the International Air Transport Association's annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro. The arrangement lets travelers buy one combined itinerary instead of booking each leg separately, connecting at three shared U.S. West Coast gateways the carrier named as Los Angeles International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and San Francisco International Airport, Channel News Asia reported.

From those hubs, Singapore Airlines customers can connect onward to the roughly 120 destinations Southwest serves but the Singapore Airlines does not reach directly, the company said, from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Anchorage, Alaska, both among the five U.S. airports Southwest began serving in 2026.

For travelers in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, the practical payoff runs through Changi. Singapore Airlines flies daily from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to Singapore, and its budget arm Scoot serves Da Nang, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc, according to the carriers' published schedules. A passenger leaving Tan Son Nhat can now, in principle, hold a single reservation through Changi and a West Coast gateway to a Southwest city that no carrier previously offered on one ticket.

An interline partnership lets travelers book flights on two or more airlines on a single ticket rather than purchasing each segment on its own. Passengers check in once for the entire journey, and their baggage is checked through to the final destination, so it does not have to be collected and rechecked during the layover.

A Singapore Airlines plane is seen in the static display at the Singapore Airshow in Singapore, Feb. 16, 2022. Photo by Reuters

The tie-up reflects a wider pattern of Asian carriers using Southwest to reach U.S. interior cities they cannot serve themselves.

Until now, a traveler landing at Los Angeles or San Francisco bound for a smaller U.S. city often has to clear immigration, collect bags and buy a separate domestic ticket, friction the single itinerary removes.

Combined itineraries are sold through Singapore Airlines, travel agents and travel websites, but not through Southwest's own booking channels, Travel Weekly reported.

"Singapore Airlines becomes the eighth carrier in our partnership portfolio," Southwest Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said in a news release, adding that the partner airlines are opening the network to a growing global audience drawn to Southwest's upgraded onboard product. The carrier's other seven interline partners are All Nippon Airways, China Airlines, Condor, EVA Air, Icelandair, Philippine Airlines and Turkish Airlines.

The agreement extends a striking reversal for Southwest, which built its name as a point-to-point domestic carrier and for decades shunned the interline and codeshare deals that define legacy carriers.

Singapore Airlines was ranked the world's second-best carrier in the 2025 Skytrax World Airline Awards, behind Qatar Airways, and took the same awards' titles for best cabin crew, best first class and best airline in Asia. Its home base, Changi, was separately named the world's best airport in Skytrax's 2025 rankings.

The Singapore Airlines Group, which includes the budget carrier Scoot, serves more than 130 destinations across 35 countries and territories from the hub.