Azure | AI
A contract pilots can talk to
How Presidio helped Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) ship its first AI product.
11,000+
pilots represented by SWAPA at one of the world’s most recognized airlines
1 year
from skunkworks prototype to production release
Reduction
in routine contract questions to SWAPA staff
THE OUTCOME
Southwest pilots can now ask their labor contract questions in plain language and get an answer with citations back to the source language. What used to mean a phone call to SWAPA now takes seconds, and SWAPA staff have stopped fielding the same routine questions every day.
HOW THEY GOT THERE
A pilot built a rough prototype on his own to prove the idea. SWAPA funded it, and Presidio turned the experiment into a production product: DevOps, testing, data modernization, security, and AI expertise on model training and LLM selection, all built on Azure AI services.
WHY IT WORKED
The prototype proved demand before SWAPA committed real budget. Presidio then supplied the production discipline a prototype never has, and trained SWAPA product owners to run it. The IT committee owns the product today rather than depending on outside help to keep it running.
“It’s a huge project. It’s been wildly successful. The pilots love it. It’s probably one of the best things we’ve delivered recently.”