Longstanding airline partners Icelandair and Alaska Airlines have agreed a bilateral codeshare agreement that will allow passengers to combine flights from both airlines under a single ticket.?

The airlines said the deeper partnership will allow them to create more seamless experiences, including linked baggage handling on routes served by each carrier.

It will also enable increased and improved connectivity for European travellers to the US and beyond with Alaska¡¯s services to Hawaii and Asia.

Helgi Mar Bjorgvinsson, head of airline partnerships and international relations at Icelandair, added: ¡°We are creating even more opportunities for convenient and flexible connections between North America and Europe for our customers.

¡°This collaboration reflects our shared dedication to service excellence and delivering a superior travel experience.¡±

As part of the new codeshare agreement, loyalty point accrual and redemption will be reciprocal to both airlines.?

The move comes as Icelandair last week launched a new route between Reykjav¨ªk and Istanbul, with up to three services per week and a flight time of five hours and 30 minutes.

The route is being introduced as part of a ¡°significant expansion¡± of the partnership between Icelandair and Turkish Airlines.

Icelandair also announced passenger traffic of 608,000 in August, an increase of 1 per cent year-on-year. This included a 21 per cent rise for inbound travel to Iceland.

The carrier has been named as Europe¡¯s most punctual airline by aviation analyst Cirium this summer.