Southwest to transition to a cloud-based, AI-enabled architecture on AWS by 2028
NEW YORK, June 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) is partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider to modernize its technology foundation and evolve how the airline operates, builds, and is able to serve its Customers. As part of this partnership, Southwest will transition from a largely on-premises environment to a cloud-based, AI- and agent-enabled architecture on AWS by 2028—laying the foundation to operate with greater speed, flexibility, and reliability to support the business.
Technology powers nearly every part of the airline—from selling seats, to running daily operations, to supporting more than 70,000 Employees. As the airline continues to evolve its business model and Customer experience, it is also accelerating efforts to simplify its technology environment and improve how systems work together at scale.
"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," said Lauren Woods, Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer at Southwest Airlines, "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."
Building a cloud-based airline by 2028
Southwest is continuing to modernize its footprint on AWS, targeting a fully cloud-based environment by 2028 while expanding how it uses AI and agent-based capabilities across the business by adopting new tools like Amazon Quick.
"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," said Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President, Agentic AI at AWS.
Accelerating modernization with Kiro
Southwest is using Kiro, AWS's agentic coding service, to modernize one of its largest and most critical Customer-facing platforms—Southwest.com.
Historically, the platform has operated a large footprint of on-premises systems with long modernization timelines. By leveraging Kiro to refactor legacy code, Southwest has accelerated that effort significantly. Kiro is now used by more than 2,700 developers to build features, help automate testing, and to generate the infrastructure in the cloud.
This work is creating a foundation that is easier to evolve, scale, and support—helping Southwest move faster and automate tasks in minutes that used to take hours.
Reimagining how software gets built with AI-Driven Development Life Cycle
Beyond individual tools, Southwest is also transforming how software is built across the organization.
Using an intelligent software development workflow built on AWS capabilities like AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AIDLC)—Southwest is adopting a more agent-driven way of working. In this model, AI agents help move development forward, while engineering teams remain responsible for guiding, validating, and owning the outcomes.
About Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines Co. operates one of the world's most admired and awarded airlines, offering its one-of-a-kind value and Hospitality at 120 airports across 12 countries. Southwest took flight in 1971 to democratize the sky through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel and now carries more air travelers flying nonstop within the United States than any other airline1. By empowering its more than 73,0002 People to deliver unparalleled Hospitality, the maverick airline cherishes a passionate loyalty among more than 134 million Customers carried in 2025. Southwest leverages a unique legacy and mission to serve communities around the world including harnessing the power of its People and Purpose to put communities at the Heart of its success. Learn more by visiting Southwest.com/citizenship.
About Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is guided by customer obsession, pace of innovation, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. By democratizing technology for nearly two decades and making cloud computing and generative AI accessible to organizations of every size and industry, AWS has built one of the fastest-growing enterprise technology businesses in history. Millions of customers trust AWS to accelerate innovation, transform their businesses, and shape the future. With the most comprehensive AI capabilities and global infrastructure footprint, AWS empowers builders to turn big ideas into reality. Learn more at aws.amazon.com and follow @AWSNewsroom.
1. Based on U.S. Dept. of Transportation quarterly Airline Origin & Destination Survey as of Q4 2025
2. Fulltime-equivalent active Employees as of March 31, 2026.
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SOURCE Southwest Airlines Co.
