Southwest Airlines named Amazon $AMZN Web Services as its preferred cloud provider on Wednesday, targeting a fully cloud-based, AI-enabled architecture by 2028 as part of a broad technology overhaul.
AWS will serve as the foundation for a new cloud infrastructure, replacing the on-premises systems Southwest currently relies on, the company said. Speed and flexibility are among the stated goals of the overhaul, which affects an operation employing more than 70,000 people across 120 airports in 12 countries.
"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," Lauren Woods, executive vice president and chief information officer at Southwest Airlines, 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."
A key component of the partnership is Southwest's use of Kiro, AWS's agentic coding service, to modernize Southwest.com, one of its largest customer-facing platforms. More than 2,700 developers are now using Kiro to build features, automate testing, and generate cloud infrastructure, the company said. The tool allows tasks that previously took hours to be completed in minutes.
Another element of the deal involves AIDLC, the AI-Driven Development Lifecycle, through which Southwest is shifting toward agent-assisted software development — with engineers overseeing and validating what those agents produce rather than ceding control of outcomes. The airline plans to expand its use of agent-based capabilities across the business, including through a tool called Amazon Quick.
"By deploying AI agents across customer experience, operations, and software development, they're accelerating innovation for 134 million travelers," Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of agentic AI at AWS, said in a statement.
The AWS deal is one piece of a wider strategic transformation at Southwest. The airline has reported a first-quarter profit of $227 million and record Q1 operating revenue of $7.25 billion, while also ending its decades-old open seating policy, restructuring its boarding process, and rolling out assigned seating across four fare bundles. The carrier also announced plans to deploy Starlink Wi-Fi on at least 300 aircraft by the end of 2026.
Southwest carried more than 134 million customers in 2025 and operates the largest nonstop domestic network in the U.S., based on U.S. Department of Transportation data.