Korean Air has moved its entire IT infrastructure to the Amazon cloud

At the end of September 2021, Korean Air completed the migration of its entire IT infrastructure to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. This took the South Korean air carrier about three years.

Korean Air is the first global carrier to make a full transition to AWS. The airline will use AWS cloud capabilities to strengthen innovation and improve customer service, which will give it a competitive advantage in the era after the transition to digital technologies, the press release said.

Korean Air has moved its entire IT infrastructure to the Amazon cloud

We have completed the largest IT modernization project in the airline's 52-year history in a short period and are shifting the focus from solving problems to creating innovations faster with AWS cloud capabilities, which is especially important due to the resumption of travel, "said Kenneth Chang, Executive Vice President of Korean Air.

Korean Air transferred the IT infrastructure, including data, network and security systems, from own data-processing center (DPC) to AWS to increase efficiency and to simplify management of IT. Korean Air uses the capabilities of the AWS cloud, including data analysis and machine learning, to further improve passenger service, flight booking/ticket systems, weather forecasting and general operating activities.

Korean Air plans to introduce a machine learning management service that will allow the airline to create, train and apply machine learning models to improve customer service by more accurately predicting demand for passengers and cargo. The cloud will also allow the airline to better assess flight delays due to weather conditions and predict the maintenance time of aircraft.

In addition, the full transition to AWS will allow Korean Air to create a customer data platform in the cloud to provide more personalized services to customers by assigning a unique digital identification mark to each passenger. The company can use this label and data analysis to adapt the services offered by the airline to more accurately meet the needs of customers. Korean Air also improved its customer service channels using the microservice architecture on AWS. Using the cloud, the airline launched its new website and mobile application, which is 90% faster than using the old local infrastructure. Now customers can purchase tickets on the new website of the airline in two stages.

To develop cloud competencies within the company, Korean Air launched the AWS Innovation Builder Program, in which at first about 500 employees were trained in basic cloudy technology skills.^[1]

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