From American to Southwest: Inside Hyderabad’s Rise as Aviation GCC Capital

After American Airlines, Southwest Airlines also recently launched its global capability centre (GCC) in Hyderabad, marking the airline’s first direct global talent hub outside its long-standing vendor-led operations model. It plans to scale the centre to nearly 1,000 employees as it builds AI, analytics, cloud, and customer experience capabilities from India.

With recent investments in data modernisation and cloud transformation, the Hyderabad GCC will operate with an AI-first approach and focus heavily on analytics, cloud infrastructure, enterprise AI, and agentic AI systems.

The airline said its decision to choose Hyderabad over more established aviation and aerospace hubs such as Bengaluru was driven less by domain-specific aviation talent and more by the city’s growing technical ecosystem, infrastructure, universities, and government support.

Over the last year alone, several global enterprises have chosen the Telangana capital over other hubs. Hyderabad today hosts over 450 GCCs employing more than 1.35 lakh professionals across sectors, including technology, financial services, healthcare, aerospace, semiconductors, mobility, and advanced engineering.

Aerospace firms, including Pratt & Whitney and Safran, already operate engineering, training, and aviation support facilities in the city. The ecosystem is further supported by infrastructure initiatives such as the GMR Aerospace and Industrial Park, and expanding aerospace and defence investments around Hyderabad’s airport corridor. 

“India’s aerospace and defence GCC ecosystem is increasingly being shaped by the sector’s need for deep engineering and digital capabilities working in tandem. As aviation and defence systems become more software-intensive and data-driven, companies are expanding teams across avionics software, embedded systems, AI-led operations, cybersecurity, simulation engineering, and predictive maintenance,” Nilesh Thakker, President, Zinnov, tells AIM. 

India already hosts more than 15 aerospace and defence GCCs operating across over 30 units, reflecting the sector’s growing focus on engineering-led and digital capabilities. 

“We are not looking for another vendor setup,” affirms Lauren Woods, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Southwest Airlines. “For this initial foray into global talent, we really wanted to be in India.”

Hyderabad, in particular, benefits from a concentrated aerospace ecosystem that combines OEM presence, advanced engineering talent, manufacturing capabilities, and digital expertise within a single market, with the city accounting for around 16% of India’s operational GCC units.

Why Hyderabad Won Over Bengaluru

While Bengaluru remains India’s dominant aerospace and aviation technology hub with organisations such as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Indian Space Research Organisation anchoring the ecosystem, Wood argues that the broader technical talent pool matters more than industry-specific experience.

American Airlines has also established a large-scale tech hub in Hyderabad's HITEC City. The centre serves as a core engineering and software division, driving digital products and providing 24x7 technical support for global operations.

“We are looking for innovation and real expertise in analytics,” notes Krishna Kallepalli, Vice President & Global Head of Innovation, India, Southwest Airlines. “That expertise can come from pharma, retail, or other industries. That fresh point of view can often be just as impactful as somebody with deep domain expertise.”

He further mentions that the Telangana government’s proactive engagement, investments in AI upskilling, and strong academic ecosystem—including institutions such as the University of Hyderabad and International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad—played a major role in the decision.

At the inauguration of the centre, Duddilla Sridhar Babu, Minister for Information Technology, Electronics, Communications, Industries and Commerce, and Legislative Affairs at the Telangana government, said that Hyderabad had laid the foundation for India’s modern aviation ecosystem 25 years ago by building an airport via the public-private partnership model. “Since then, the city has evolved into one of India’s leading aviation, aerospace, and spacetech hubs.”

The Southwest Airlines GCC will focus on a wide range of technology and AI-driven initiatives, including enterprise AI and agentic AI platforms, customer experience systems, cloud and data modernisation, analytics and operational intelligence, and AI-assisted software development workflows. 

The centre will also work on commercial and travel personalisation use cases as airlines increasingly look to leverage AI, automation, and real-time data to improve customer engagement, operational efficiency, and digital services.

“What is making ecosystems like Hyderabad increasingly relevant is the ability to bring together multidisciplinary teams across aerospace engineering, software, AI, and advanced manufacturing within a single location. As aerospace and defence companies look to integrate engineering with intelligent operations more closely, access to this kind of talent concentration and ecosystem maturity is becoming a critical differentiator,” Thakker adds.

Southwest Airlines has also partnered with Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, OpenAI, and Anthropic as part of its AI ecosystem strategy.

“We want to be AI first,” Wood states. “We want AI to become part of how we build, how we operate, and how we improve productivity.”

Airlines are Changing Operations

Kallepalli states that AI is also fundamentally changing customer behaviour in the travel industry itself.

“One of the spaces I’m very interested in is GPT,” he explains. “Earlier, customers used to do a Google search or go directly to an airline website. Now, they are asking GPT systems where they should travel.”

This shift is forcing carriers to rethink how airlines engage with travellers digitally, particularly around discovery, personalisation, and booking journeys. He also emphasises that safety-critical airline operations will continue to retain strong human oversight despite growing automation.

Southwest’s Hyderabad facility spans 20,000 sq ft, with a capacity for around 200 employees, but executives confirmed expansion plans are already underway.

“We are looking to scale up to a thousand people,” Kallepalli says.

The airline also indicated plans to engage with Hyderabad’s startup ecosystem and universities over the next year, particularly around analytics and AI talent development.