How Southwest Airlines is putting endpoint operations on autopilot
As digital tools become more central to its operations, Southwest Airlines is increasingly turning to AI and automation to prevent endpoint issues from affecting the sprawling airline. The new tools allow the company’s IT team to take a more strategic, rather than reactive, approach to operations, said Derek Whisenhunt, head of end user computing at Southwest Airlines. “Bottom line is we now focus our team’s time on proactive and preventative work and increasing the digital employee experience and not waiting for issues to arise before focusing on them,” said Whisenhunt. Southwest has been steadily digitizing frontline workflows for the past decade, replacing paper-based operational processes with mobile devices and cloud applications for its maintenance, flight operations, and gate services workers — and even cabin crews. The Dallas-based company has largely digitized operations for its 72,000 staffers — two-thirds of which are in frontline roles — replacing the printed manuals used