The aviation industry is sitting on the precipice of a major investment in automation that will transform how the world flies.
Automation and technology are hardly new concepts in aviation. A flood of new technology and concepts have come into the market in the past decade looking for ways to improve operations and the passenger experience.
These automations and investments have been mostly limited to the major international hubs of North America, but the pandemic turned baby steps towards the future into a necessary leap for airports of all sizes.
According to SITA’s recently released 2021 Airport IT Insights report, 81 percent of airports expect their overall IT spend to grow or remain stable in 2022. They’re focused on growth in emerging technology. About 81 percent put business intelligence software as the first area of investment, but three-quarters plan to invest in biometric ID management solutions. Airport CIOs also have more interest in exploring artificial intelligence and digital tags, with plans to invest more into development of these programs.
It's exciting to see enthusiasm for change and airport leaders willing to embrace the future in a bold way, but we need to collectively keep an eye of security now to protect these investments.
Airport Business recently conducted its State of the Industry survey and found 26 percent of responding airports said they haven’t taken any major steps towards protecting their facility against cyberattacks. Only 41 percent have developed an organizational plan to protect itself from cyberattacks.
FBOs are also missing the mark with only 27 percent saying they plan to invest in security upgrades in the next five years.
We’ll be diving deeper into these results later this year as part of our Aviation Security Report, but this indicates the lackadaisical approach to cybersecurity still exists within the industry at a time it needs it the most.
The pandemic has ruled the roost when it comes to the aviation operations conversation, but it was just 2019 when Cleveland was hacked. The Colonial Pipeline hack this past year was a temporary wakeup call, but that too seems to have faded to the background.
Investing in automation and more technology is a great move for addressing the needs and challenges of future, but if we’re not going to address the security issues of yesterday, it’s simply going to slow down what needs to be done today.
