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Data and Connectivity is the Biggest Concern in the Aviation Industry

Issue 25 - 2024
Data and Connectivity is the Biggest Concern in the Aviation Industry

Mehmet Keyvan CEO / KEYVAN AVIATION

The recent issue happened for the whole world in terms of the IT and software infrastructure, which is named as a blue screen shows everyone that maybe not very simple, but a single action or course of action could lead to huge damage and risk to the whole industry, in healthcare, in the shops, in the restaurants, in the railways, in the ships, and of course in aviation and airport. So this experience was not a very pleasant experience for everyone, either the airline as owner or operator who lost their income or passengers who were stuck in the busy departure haul of the airports and waiting to get their boarding pass or process to the next stage. So do we think it's time to consider the safest or alternative options for the aviation industry? Because aviation is one of the major industries, affected by the recent issue and one of the highest standards, covered by lots of regulations, which means that it's not easy to make sure about the safety, quality, sustainability, and contingency of the operation. So by considering all of these and the fact that as of today we cannot point our finger at someone who leads this issue to happen to the whole world, but we know that this could happen again. This shows us that we need to do something, we need to secure our position, and we need to find a way for the very near future.

Not long ago, there was another incident in the aviation industry, that happened to one of the service providers, and their servers and computers were hacked, which led to the discontinuation of their services not for a long time, but at least a few days.

In that period, lots of end-users, including an airline, business operators, and avionics manufacturers were looking to get updated data or documents in their EFB, which were not updated because the servers were hacked. Immediately after this situation, EASA and FAA called for an urgent meeting, to discuss what would be the next step to ensure that this kind of issue is not happen again because when we talk about this kind of issue, the concern is not only discontinuity of the service, it's about how we can trust the data content after the server's issues are resolved, as checking the global data again before delivering to the customer for making sure that there is no effect happened by the hack or virus or a kind of computer issues not affected the data content, it's a very important task and the quality measurement is required to guarantee such a conformity.

So, the authority expected from the data providers software providers, or avionic manufacturers around the table to offer some solutions for the future, which the threat or risk may increase, and this will lead everyone and every stakeholder in the aviation industry who has access to the EFB product, to the chart, to the data or navigation data product, has a biggest concern about the safety and security of the data.

Now, again, almost one and half years after the previous issue, the whole world is faced with the blue screen, which is not talking about the data, it's talking about the system infrastructure. However, when we look at the whole big picture, it is all about the IT infrastructure, it's about the technology, and of course it's about the transfer of the data. What we see in the recent issue is that if our computers or servers are not operated properly, we don't have access to our millions of rows of data hosted inside, so the boarding pass is handwritten. The system was not able to print out the boarding pass while it was designed or prepared and data was already there in the server, was not reachable or accessible for the operators.

One of the important ideas or decisions that the governments or authorities in each country or, let's say, each state could take in the near future is to make sure that they have enough infrastructure and backups to take care of the available data and make sure that this data or this operation are not

affected by a single issue or threat, which could easily enter the system from a different way of the operation. However, even if you have all firewalls and system security in place, you must also ensure the content of your data. It is something out of the hands of many operators or many stakeholders in the aviation industry because the limited approval situation shows that everyone is dependent and they need to trust the source of data that they are taking this data up to today. But the question is this: are we truly interested in finding an alternative solution or in the aviation industry are we still looking to stick with some traditional methods for the future as well?

The experience in the aviation industry shows that the different levels of the decision-makers in each stakeholder company, whether it is a major airline operator, a small business jet operator, or an airport, prefer to stick with what they started from the beginning, which may be too risky for the future. Without taking the measures or reassessment of the capability, capacity, and risk of the previous providers, they want to stick and they don't want to make some reassessment or double check to make sure that whether an alternative situation is available or whether they should find a new way to host the data or to design or to implement the required data. As a result, sticking with the old system is not good enough to secure or guarantee the future of the operation. A single threat or risk will cause such an issue in the whole operation and that time is too late because the damage that occurred from this threat or risk or issue at that time will be bigger than the investment required by the company to make sure that for the future they have an alternative way of preparing or collecting the required data, whether for their operation or for their analysis or for the passengers.

The data could be from different categories, but the important message from the recent issues is that all stakeholders, and operators in the airline industry or aviation industry need to consider a new or alternative way of providing or getting the data, hosting the data, and analyzing the data because otherwise they will put themselves in a bigger issue which may happen to them again.

Also, this issue is not limited to the aviation stakeholder. This could be the biggest and major issue in the future for the governmental operation in terms of the military, or humanitarian and special operation inside or outside of the countries. Because having access to trustworthy data, as well as hosting it in a secure environment, allows them to ensure that it remains safe, secure, accessible, and reachable to those who need it. which is very crucial in this industry. During such a situation and crisis, a civil aviation section may delay or stop the flight for a certain period, but a government operation cannot be stopped, delayed, or postponed because of issues in the computer or data system. So the importance of such an operation shows how crucial it is to ensure that data is collected, trusted, and hosted. These decisions need to be taken at the government levels in different requirement offices, but they need to be taken seriously in terms of the operation's requirements, aside from civil aviation requirements.

The industry, aviation, or the government-industry should not forget that we are living in a world where the political situation is changing every day. So each country, each operator needs to take care of their requirement to make sure that if there is a change in the winds of the politics, still their operation and their performance remain as per their plan and as per their requirement, not affected by the situation which may lead the biggest loss of the profit in terms of the civil aviation and also awareness in terms of the government and military 


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