Icelandair's new St. Louis flights caught a lot of people off guard. The Icelandic airline announced on October 7 that it will fly nonstop between St. Louis and Reykjavik starting May 14, 2027. On paper, it looks like a strange choice. St. Louis isn't New York or Chicago, and it's not exactly known as a gateway to Europe.
But look a little closer, and the pick makes a lot of sense. The biggest clue is another airline entirely.
New route · Summer 2027
Icelandair Is Coming to St. Louis
Southwest carried most of St. Louis's passengers in 2022, and it's Icelandair's partner. Travelers can connect between the two airlines on a single itinerary.
Contrail
The Route
Icelandair will fly the route three to four times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, through October 24. That makes it a summer route, timed for the busiest season for travel to Iceland and Europe.
Like most Icelandair flights, it's built around connections. Passengers can stop in Iceland or connect in Reykjavik to cities across Europe. Icelandair has long let travelers add a stopover in Iceland on the way at no extra airfare, so a trip to Paris can include a few days seeing waterfalls.
St. Louis will be Icelandair's 16th destination in the US, joining big cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
The Southwest Connection
The part of the announcement that explains everything is easy to miss. St. Louis will also become a new gateway for Icelandair's partnership with Southwest Airlines.
The two airlines started working together in 2025, in Southwest's first airline partnership in decades. It's what's known as an interline agreement, which lets travelers book Southwest and Icelandair flights together on a single itinerary. Until now, the connecting cities have been Baltimore, Denver, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh and Raleigh-Durham.
St. Louis fits that list perfectly, because it's one of Southwest's strongest cities anywhere. Southwest carried 57.7% of St. Louis passengers in 2022, more than every other airline at the airport combined.
That changes the math for Icelandair. It doesn't need to fill its planes with people who live in St. Louis alone. A traveler in Kansas City, Omaha or Memphis could fly Southwest into St. Louis and connect to Icelandair on the same booking, then on to Europe. In other words, St. Louis can act like a hub for the whole region, with Southwest doing the feeding.
St. Louis Has Been Here Before
This isn't the first time an Icelandic airline has bet on St. Louis. WOW Air, Iceland's former budget airline, started flying to St. Louis in 2018. It was the city's first nonstop flight to Europe in about 15 years, and it drew plenty of excitement.
It didn't last. WOW pulled out of St. Louis in January 2019, just months before the airline collapsed entirely.
Icelandair is a different story. It's the country's established national airline, with a hub built around connecting North America and Europe, and now a partner that dominates the airport it's flying into.
Europe Is Getting Closer for St. Louis
Icelandair's route also adds to a bigger trend. St. Louis now has more ways to reach Europe than it has had in years. Lufthansa flies to Frankfurt, and British Airways started flying to London Heathrow in April 2026.
For travelers in the middle of the country, that's good news. More nonstop options mean fewer connections through Chicago or New York, and potentially more competition on fares. If the Southwest partnership works the way it's designed to, St. Louis might not stay a "random" pick for long.
