Southwest Airlines, an Amadeus customer transforming travel
This blog is part of a special series featuring Amadeus customers who are leading the way in digital transformation in travel. By harnessing transformational technology – managing and optimizing vast airline networks – these organizations are reimagining how travel works, creating more intuitive, personalized, and seamless experiences for travelers.
How Amadeus Sky suite helps Southwest Airlines build more effective schedules
Smarter scheduling with Amadeus: How Southwest optimizes every flight
For any airline, an effective schedule is the foundation of both profitability and passenger satisfaction. But designing that schedule is no small feat—it means aligning aircraft and crew availability, maintenance windows, airport slots, competitive pressures, passenger connections, and regulatory requirements, all while keeping disruptions to a minimum. At Southwest Airlines, we face these same challenges on a massive scale—thousands of flights a day, hundreds of aircraft, and an expansive, multi-country network.
By partnering with Amadeus and implementing the Sky suite of solutions, we’ve transformed the way we plan and adapt our schedules. The result? A more resilient, efficient network that not only improves the passenger experience but also unlocks new commercial opportunities.
Partnering with Amadeus for smarter scheduling
Our long-standing collaboration with Amadeus has led to the implementation of the Amadeus Sky suite—an advanced set of tools that helps us manage our vast network. These include:
- SkyMAX – Optimizes flight times and aircraft usage to balance route efficiency and revenue.
- SkyCAST – Simulates passenger behavior and revenue impacts to forecast traffic, market share, and costs.
- SkySYM – Builds resilient schedules that can withstand disruptions like weather or delays.
- SkyWORKS – Our latest addition, enabling efficient schedule edits—from single-day changes to large-scale updates—with real-time feasibility checks and support for codeshare partnerships. This added capability gives us greater operational flexibility, especially for overnight flying, and opens new commercial opportunities by overcoming limitations of legacy systems.
A fully integrated platform for growth
With the full Sky suite now live, we’re managing a vast operation—117 airports, 11 countries, nearly 800 aircraft, and over 4,000 daily flights during peak times. This success is powered by scalable infrastructure, robust data analytics, and Amadeus’ market data services, which enhance revenue potential through precise forecasting.
What this means for Southwest and our customers
The Sky suite has transformed our scheduling capabilities—enabling faster, more informed decisions, reducing manual work, and minimizing errors. It supports strategic planning, new route development, and future tool integration, positioning Southwest for continued growth and agility.
Ultimately, our passengers benefit from more flights to the places they want to go, backed by smarter technology and a stronger network.
Southwest Airlines Co. operates one of the world's most admired and awarded airlines, offering its one-of-a-kind value and Hospitality at 117 airports across 11 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 72,0002 People to deliver unparalleled Hospitality, the maverick airline cherishes a passionate loyalty among more than 140 million Customers carried in 2024. 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.
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