Southwest Airlines announced a new partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Wednesday.
The move makes AWS the airline's preferred cloud provider as it modernizes its technology foundation and evolves its business.
The partnership will see Southwest transition from a largely on-premises environment to a cloud-based, AI- and agent-enabled architecture on AWS by 2028, the carrier said. This will help Southwest operate with greater speed, flexibility, and reliability in the future.
The Dallas-based airline will also expand how it uses AI and agent-based capabilities by adopting new tools like Amazon Quick. Southwest is also using AWS's agentic coding service Kiro to modernize its website at Southwest.com.
"Southwest has always evolved our business with a focus on improving performance, efficiency, and reliability—and applying that same mindset to our technology with AWS is a core part of that strategy," Southwest's Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer Lauren Woods said in a statement.
"From Customer experience to operations, to how we build the systems behind it—all of it is coming together in a way that helps our Teams move faster, make better decisions, and deliver for our Customers," said Woods.
"Southwest Airlines is using AI to deliver on its commitment to being a customer-obsessed airline. By deploying AI agents across customer experience, operations, and software development, they're accelerating innovation for 134 million travelers—and proving that pioneering ambition paired with AWS's agentic AI capabilities delivers real, measurable results at scale," added Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President, Agentic AI at AWS.
The partnership comes just weeks after Southwest announced an enhanced car rental experience and marked a "turning point" following an overhaul of its business in the wake of pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management.
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
