Which carriers does Singapore Airlines interline with?

Interlining can be all the difference between a smooth connection and a stressful rush. Here's which carriers Singapore Airlines has interline agreements with.

As anyone who’s ever travelled on separate tickets before will know, an interline agreement can make all the difference between a smooth connection, and a stressful rush.  

The convenience of getting all your boarding passes at one shot and checking your bag through to the final destination should not be understated, especially if your inbound flight arrives late or if a terminal change is required.

In this post, we’ll look at what interlining is, and the agreements that Singapore Airlines has in place. 

What is interlining?

Interlining allows for baggage to be checked across carriers, among other things

While there’s probably a more technically correct definition, I prefer to think of interlining simply as an agreement that allows Airline A to send passengers onto Airline B, without requiring them to reclaim their luggage or check-in again.

Interlining is important when dealing with flight disruptions (since an airline typically rebooks passengers onto another airline it interlines with), but is more commonly encountered when dealing with two separate tickets.

Depending on your situation, the presence of an interline agreement can either be a mild convenience, or absolute necessity. 

For example, I might redeem a Qatar Airways ticket from KUL-DOH-MXP, and then purchase a separate Singapore Airlines ticket from SIN-KUL. Since Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines interline, I could get my boarding passes in SIN and check my bag all the way through to MXP, saving me the time of clearing arrival immigration in KUL, claiming my bag, checking in and clearing departure immigration again. 

However, an interline agreement may very well determine the underlying viability of a journey in the first place. If I want to fly from A > B > C, but cannot enter Country B without a visa (and don’t intend to apply for one), then I’m counting on being able to check my bag all the way through from A to C.

I’ll talk about some caveats to interlining later in this article, but first, let’s look at the agreements that Singapore Airlines has.

Singapore Airlines’ interline agreements

SIA interlines with the Lufthansa Group, among other carriers

At the time of writing, Singapore Airlines has interline agreements with more than 100 carriers worldwide.

The information below is extracted from the KVS Tool (a paid subscription is required to use it). 

[KVS Tool 10.4.1 – Reference: Interline Agreements [IET]: SQ]

ELECTRONIC INTERLINE CARRIER AGREEMENTS-SQ

INTERLINE CARRIER CODES

AA – AC – AD – AE – AF – AH – AI – AM – AS – AT- AV – AY – AZ – A3 – BA – BG – BI – BP – BR – BT – B6 – B7 – CA – CI – CM – CX – CZ – DJ – DL – EI -EK – EN – ET – EW – EY – FI – FJ – FM – FZ – GA- GF – G3 – HA – HM – HO – HR – HU – HX – HY – IB- IC – IY – JJ – JL – JO – JU – KC – KE – KF – KL- KM – KQ – KU – LA – LG – LH – LM – LO – LP – LR- LX – LY – ME – MF – MH – MI – MK – MS – MU – NF- NH – NX – NZ – OA – OK – OM – OS – OU – OZ – O6- PD – PG – PK – PR – PS – PX – PZ – QF – QR – QV- RA – RJ – RO – SA – SB – SC – SK – SN – SQ – SU -SV – SW – S7 – TA – TG – TK – TP – TR – T0 – UA- UB – UK – UL – UX – VA – VN – VS – VY – WF – WY -W2 – XL – ZH – 4M – 4U – 4Z – 9B – 9W

For those of you who don’t speak airline code, here’s a summary of which code refers to what airline. 

CodeAirline
4MLan Argentina
4UGermanwings
4ZAirlink
9BAccesRail
9WJet Airways
A3Aegean Airlines
AAAmerican Airlines
ACAir Canada
ADAzul Linhas
AEMandarin Airlines
AFAir France
AHAir Algérie
AIAir India
AMAeromexico
ASAlaska Airlines
ATRoyal Air Maroc
AVAVIANCA
AYFinnair
AZAlitalia
B6JetBlue
B7Uni Air
BABritish Airways
BGBiman
BIRoyal Brunei
BPAir Botswana
BREVA Air
BTAir Baltic
CAAir China Limited
CIChina Airlines
CMCOPA Airlines
CXCathay Pacific
CZChina Southern Airlines
DJAir Djibouti
DLDelta Air Lines
EIAer Lingus
EKEmirates
ENAir Dolomiti
ETEthiopian Airlines
EWEurowings
EYEtihad Airways
FIIcelandair
FJFiji Airways
FMShanghai Airlines
FZFlydubai
G3VRG Linhas Aéreas S.A. – Grupo GOL
GAGaruda
GFGulf Air
HAHawaiian Airlines
HMAir Seychelles
HOJuneyao Airlines
HRHahn Air
HUHainan Airlines
HXHong Kong Airlines
HYUzbekistan Airways
IBIBERIA
ICIndian Airlines
IYYemenia
JJTAM Linhas Aéreas
JLJapan Airlines
JOAircompany JONIKA
JUAir SERBIA a.d. Beograd
KCAir Astana
KEKorean Air
KFBlue1
KLKLM
KMAir Malta
KQKenya Airways
KUKuwait Airways
LALan Airlines
LGLuxair
LHLufthansa
LMLoganair
LOLOT Polish Airlines
LPLan Perú
LRLACSA
LXSWISS
LYEL AL
MEMEA
MFXiamen Airlines
MHMalaysia Airlines
MISilkair
MKAir Mauritius
MSEgyptair
MUChina Eastern
NFAir Vanuatu
NHAll Nippon Airways
NXAir Macau
NZAir New Zealand
O6Avianca Brasil
OAOlympic Air
OKCzech Airlines j.s.c
OMMIAT
OSAustrian
OUCroatia Airlines
OZAsiana
PDPorter Airlines
PGBangkok Air
PKPIA
PRPAL
PSUkraine International Airlines
PXAir Niugini
PZTAM – Transportes Aéreos del Mercosur Sociedad Anónima
QFQantas
QRQatar Airways
QVLao Airlines
RANepal Airlines
RJRoyal Jordanian
ROTAROM
S7Siberia Airlines
SASAA
SBAircalin
SCShandong Airlines
SKSAS
SNBrussels Airlines
SQSIA
SUAeroflot
SVSaudi Arabian Airlines
SWAir Namibia
T0TACA Peru
TATACA
TGThai Airways International
TKTHY – Turkish Airlines
TPTAP Portugal
TRScoot
UAUnited Airlines
UBMyanmar National Airlines
UKVistara
ULSriLankan
UXAir Europa
VAVirgin Australia
VNVietnam Airlines
VSVirgin Atlantic
VYvueling
W2FlexFlight
WFWideroe
WYOman Air
XLLanEcuador
ZHShenzhen Airlines

Note that the system has some “leftovers”, such as Germanwings (since rebranded to Eurowings with a different airline code) and Indian Airlines (folded into Air India in 2011).

Caveats about interlining

Interlining on separate tickets is not a given

Interlining agreements are primarily concerned with facilitating the travel of passengers across different airlines on the same ticket. Just because two airlines have an interline agreement does not mean they’re obligated to check you through when travelling on separate tickets. 

Most of the time they should, but keep in mind this is done as a courtesy, as Cathay Pacific puts it: 

As a courtesy, Cathay Pacific will through-check you and your bags to your final destination if you are travelling on separate tickets involving connections with our interline partners. However through-check may not be possible on their return journey if your travel begins with an airline that does not to provide separate ticket through-check service.

Still, you may encounter the odd agent who is unfamiliar with the rules or unwilling to assist. I’ve been in situations where agents refused to check my bag through on the grounds that the second airline was not part of the same alliance, notwithstanding the fact an interline agreement existed.

It pays to be patient, polite, and know your stuff. MileLion community member Ray suggests a trick that can work if both airlines are on the Amadeus system, namely asking the agent to enter TGAD-XX where XX is the airline’s code. This displays a full list of interline agreements. Alternatively, entering TGAD-XX/YY will display the interline agreement between the validating carrier XX and the second carrier YY. 

All the same, there’s always some degree of risk in booking separate tickets, especially if you have luggage. 

Interlining must respect MCT

If you’re booking two separate tickets, you should make sure the Minimum Connecting Time (MCT) is satisfied.

As the name suggests, MCT is the minimum time between the scheduled arrival of one flight and the scheduled departure of another. Bangkok, for example, has the following MCTs:

  • Domestic to Domestic: 1h 15 mins
  • Domestic to International: 1h 15 mins
  • International to Domestic: 1h 15 mins
  • International to International: 1h 15 mins

This means that if you book a separate SIN-BKK and BKK-KIX ticket and the arrival of the first flight is within 1h 15 mins from the departure time of the second flight, your request to interline will be denied.

Regular customs rules still apply

Interline agreements are still subject to the standard customs restrictions.

For example, Singapore Airlines and JetBlue have an interline agreement, but US laws require passengers to collect their bags and clear customs at their first port of entry. So if you had a Singapore Airlines SIN-SFO and a JetBlue SFO-BOS ticket, you would still need to collect your bag in SFO and clear customs before sending it off again on the SFO-BOS leg. 

Similar rules apply to Australia and New Zealand, where your connecting flight is a domestic one. 

Conclusion

Interlining agreements are very important to miles collectors who intend to book separate tickets across two different frequent flyer programmes. While interlining on separate tickets is never guaranteed, it can be done more often than not.

I would, however, ensure that I had a backup plan for a worst case scenario where the agent at the first airport is unwilling or unable to check the bag through. 

Aaron Wong
Aaron Wong
Aaron founded The Milelion to help people travel better for less and impress chiobu. He was 50% successful.

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Bruno

Be also careful with immigration/visa requirements at the connecting point between separate tickets. E.g. Qatar Airways has this condition on every e-ticket, and they’re not the only airline that enforces this: • Remember to check your immigration and health requirements before you travel and ensure you carry the required travel documents. • If you are holding a non-Qatar Airways ticket for a connection afterwards, you will need to hold immigration approval to land at the final city in your itinerary that is ticketed by Qatar Airways SQ seems to be more relaxed on that. I connected recently in DEL between… Read more »

Abc

“Most of the time they should, but keep in mind this is done as a courtesy,” I find this statement not a very good one. You give the impression that all airlines should do it, it’s just a matter of competence of the check in staff whether it’s done or not. This is not true, many airlines have long standing policies of rejecting any through check-in in almost any circumstances unless the entire itinerary was on a single ticket (ie they will only check in for the end destination on the ticket they are responsible for, and not for any… Read more »

Mark

The simplest solution to all the complexity is to just fly without check-in luggage. So we have a SIN-IST award ticket (IST being the “sweet-spot”). It is business so we can carry on what we need. No check-in. Then, we have a ticket on TK leaving IST about 5 hours later to a European city. So this whole interline topic becomes irrelevant. We online check-in for the TK flight ex-IST and print our boarding passes. We check-in, in SIN and collect out boarding passes to IST. We don’t even need to tell SQ about the second flight! When arriving in… Read more »

Andrew

Pointless. As soon as your A-B leg gets delayed, causing you to miss the B-C leg, the second airline does not extend the “courtesy” to get you on the next available flight. As far as the second airline is concerned, you should’ve been located in the city.
So this hack is not useful at all, even if you take carry-on only. Better to book a single ticket.

Turningleft

Thanks for the info, just in time for my flight from EWR to SIN next month. Though it makes me nervous, because we have an incoming flight into EWR on UA on a separate ticket, and I’ve heard UA agents can be quite indifferent with interline agreements with separate tickets.

Fakhri

Most recently I had separate tickets on Avianca and Turkish from Bogota to Istanbul connecting in Madrid. Both AV and TK are both Star Alliance and I had 5 hours of connecting time. The AV flight even had a TK codeshare and they STILL insisted they couldn’t interline because of separate tickets 🙄

Ortloc

I was flying in JL J class NRT-KUL using the now defunct Alaska Airlines redemption stopover trick and bought a separate onward Y class KUL-SIN on MH, hoping that as OneWorld partners, they would interline.

No such luck. The ticketing agent refused to check me and my baggage through. Fortunately I had factored a 4-hour connection but it’s still a pain having to retrieve the luggage and going through immigration and check-in again.

A small price to pay for an ultra-cheap business class return ticket though.

WanderLust

I had the exact same itinerary as you when travelled in 2019. The JAL agent able to check through my luggage to SIN when I told her I had a connecting MH flight at KUL.

Not for boarding pass. I need to go to the transit counter at KUL to have it print out. Maybe the JAL agent misunderstood you. You should ask for only luggage to check through and not your connecting boarding ticket too.

Last edited 1 year ago by WanderLust
asprino

so.. SQ has an interline agreement with… SQ???

Nop San

Singapore is my neighboring country. But I have never traveled. 
I plan after the covid 19 epidemic is better I will travel for a couple of days.

Claudine

My personal experience :

  1. Lufthansa – agent won’t even check the connecting SQ flight since tickets both separately. Travelling Edi-FRA-Sin
  2. SAS – I had earlier got SQ CSO to “link” my tickets together but the check in counter at OSL still can’t find the SQ flight. Travelling OSL-CPH-SIN
  3. SQ – linked the SQ tiks and SAS tiks together and check in counter at Changi was able to check in all the way to STK. no issue at all

looks like our home airport does better at the interlining.

Zhen

SA – I had earlier got SQ CSO to link” my 2 separate reservations, do you think I will get the same experience with your SAS?

Maree

Where is this information from? I just called Singapore airlines to confirm and your information is incorrect. This could cause a lot of troubles for people and you should check it before publishing incorrect information!

Jul

Hello,
Has anyone successfully interline Thai Airways to Singapore Airlines ?
I suspect as they are both star alliance that it should be easier ?
However my journey will start in Sapporo so not sure how staff counter will react.

Round Trip : Sin-Bkk-Cts & Cts-Bkk-Sin

Thanks

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