For the first time, the ASSA-i Director General, Catherine Piana had the honour to co-chair the security stream of Passenger Terminal 2024. She shares her impressions below.
There was a lot to take away after 2,5 days of conference, speeches and panels at Passenger Termain Expo and Conference in Frankfurt (16-18 April). Much was said about cybersecurity, AI, Insider Threat, drones, crisis management and AVSEC in general. What was the red thread? A few thoughts I took away about what we need:
- cooperation and coordination: between stakeholders, between departments of the same company/organisation (in particular when approaching cyber and physical security or the insider threat);
- regularly updated awareness of how technology can be used by the "bad guys" for everyone in the organisation and this is ever more important with AI, which can make deep fake look very real;
- embrace the opportunity to augment security thanks to technology and empower staff by recognising their unique contribution and skills in the human-technology relation;
- more preparation, including for the unexpected and a better understanding of the psychological, cognitive and emotional dimension of organisations, especially in crisis management.
To address all these aspects in security, technical know-how is not enough. We need creativity, flexibility, agility, empathy and a common purpose. Protecting people, assets and infrastructure in aviation - as in critical infrastructure and society in general - is a high purpose and a passion for all the people I have met and shared time with this week.
The next edition of Passenger Terminal will be held in Madrid from 8 to 10 April 2025.