Now Southwest Can Act Like Other Airlines. Uh-Oh?

For most of its 45 years, Southwest Airlines Co. has operated with a kludgy hodgepodge of technology systems, mainly built in-house. It was generally a cheaper approach that better fit the needs of its network, radically different from those of hub-and-spoke airlines.

Now, Southwest is racing to catch up technologically. The centerpiece of this three-year, $500 million effort is a new reservations system that Southwest will begin implementing this year, beginning with ticket sales. Operations will move to the platform in the first half of 2017, followed by additional enhancements later that year. The passenger service system, which is being built by Amadeus IT Holding SA, will offer Southwest, the biggest U.S. player by domestic passengers, the same sort of scheduling techniques its rivals have been using for years.