Dive Brief:

• Delta Air Lines named Amazon Web Services the company’s preferred cloud provider on Tuesday, a day ahead of Delta’s Q2 2022 earnings call.
• The multiyear deal will focus on key areas of outward-facing operations, including speed, security and overall ease of customer experience, the company said. AWS’s Amazon Connect omnichannel cloud contact center service will also enable Delta representatives to respond more rapidly and efficiently to customer needs.
• Airlines are feeling pressure to improve customer service as volume — and revenue — returns to pre-pandemic levels. But persistent staffing problems continue to cause delays and cancellations.

Dive Insight:

Cloud migration promises efficiency and improvements in consumer outreach and customer experience, two perennial concerns in an industry with notoriously tight margins subject to fluctuations in fuel prices and weather conditions.

With persistent staffing shortages adding to the list of industrywide woes, Delta is doubling down on its commitment to cloud and its reliance on AWS.

The airline industry began recovering from pandemic disruptions early last year. As of March 2022, domestic flight bookings had reached pre-pandemic levels, according to an Adobe Digital Economy Index report.

The new AWS agreement follows a February of 2021 decision by Delta to migrate hundreds of applications and workloads to cloud using IBM’s hybrid cloud architecture. 

While full details are not yet available, a statement from AWS indicates that Delta plans to build out client-facing and internal cloud capabilities to scale the program globally, and to provide employees with cloud skills training.