Welcome & Introduction

Welcome! In the past, Air Traffic Control (ATC) was mainly concerned with safety, for example to ensure a sufficient separation between planes. Today this is not enough anymore, because during the last years the air traffic increased at very high rates. Instead of just keeping planes separated from each other, an efficient usage of the air space, avoidance of congestions or fuel economy play are more and more important role. This has a strong impact on ATC technology. Airports face a similar challenge with ever-increasing passenger numbers, as well as the constant need to optimise operations and to guarantee public safety.

In order to optimise operations, the involved stakeholders need to share more and more information, and they need to do this faster and faster (ideally in real-time). To achieve this, significant pervasive IT infrastructure is required, and security plays a critical role in getting stakehodler buy-in for sharing information. This is partly because of separated responsibilities, which get blurred if too much information is shared (esp. with untrusted stakeholders). This is why information security is so important.

Ulrich