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Hello, thank you.
Thank you very much for coming here.
My name is Martin. I go by the nickname
Saper.
It's a wonderful thing to
be here. I mean, I'm amazed
that I have a chance
to talk to you today, and I
hope you'll like it.
Um, here are some
pointers to myself, some little
technical innovation.
If you have your laptop on your lap, you
can just go to the URL.
And if you press all slides
might advance automatically
on your computer.
If you don't, maybe it's useful for some
of you.
So for some time now,
I've been really fascinated by aviation
computer systems and
everything that surrounds it,
and I find this is a very
specific and, uh,
domain of computing.
Um, this presentation contains
everything is from public sources.
As far I can tell, and
I tried quite hard not to include
anything, but this is restricted
or or
some kind of things.
So for some important disclaimers,
I mean, mostly for me, this talk
is done in my private capacity
and because of my private interests.
So any relation to my day and night
job is purely coincidental.
So before purchasing anything, do contact
licensed professional and don't
rely on anything I'm say.
So first I want to dove into
our ports environment.
So typical software you see,
uh, on the on the airports.
So obviously, the first and the most
important one are air traffic control
systems.
So everything which is responsible for
safety and in-flight,
then you have some simple things
like flight information systems, some
of those things which
manage all those fancy displays
you see all around the airport
and all the information that passengers
are getting systems for baggage control,
making sure everything gets very, very
tuite access
control, of course, limiting
access for employees
and crews and everybody,
plus additional little small things like
announcement systems for lost and found,
et cetera, et cetera.
Probably found
lots of things like that on every
airport.
One, two systems, which I want to mention
here, but are
also used widely in the industry,
not on the airports.
Artomatic and what Streator
to Mattick is in a
huge database, uh,
having information about passport and
visa requirements.
So travel agents, checking
agents, airline representatives can
verify online
what's what may be wrong
with with your visa or your passport,
but you may not be allowed into your
destination.
What stressor is a very interesting
system which literally knows
every piece of luggage
where it is worldwide and you can
trace it and you can find it if it's
lost, if there is a
way to figure out what went wrong
and why why it went wrong.
So simple things
from the air traffic control category
think people who are interested in
aviation might have known this already.
This is stuff related to the weather.
So we have messages describing
prognosis, however, and we also have
messages describing current weather.
There is a good American website to
touch to see this.
And, well, you can imagine a simple Iasi
conversation between two people like
this, like, you know, somebody
asking how is weather in Worsoe
and this response?
Yeah, it's fine, mostly
fine. I mean, visibility is good.
The clouds are low and
no significant change changes recently.
I used to have some such gadget
on my laptop to check for.
However, I think it's going to be pretty
useful in
from ATC
domain and it's strategic to Europe
is called common decision making.
So basically under a single European
sky, as we call it, I'm sorry,
under a single European sky,
all the information about traffic, the
movements of aircraft are
transmitted centrally.
The organization responsible for what is
Eurocontrol in Brussels.
And basically they know what
time, which aircraft was pushed from
the gate when it went to
to to runway went into the depart.
But what kind of delay was that?
What was the reason?
And so on. So on.
So this helps to squeeze more space
out of a traffic space in Europe
considerably.
They have a nice public website.
There is a link up where I have
connected all the links in one place
later.
So if you want, you can follow
them. And it contains
lots of information about current traffic
situation in Europe. So if you are
embarking on a trip and you have
you know, there are problems in some
airports, you can go over
and send information.
If this is a sample message regarding
Schengen right now in Europe.
So on every weekend since December
to, uh, to February,
air traffic controllers and pilots
are supposed to supposed to follow some
specific instructions.
This is an example for Innsbrook
Airport.
So there is a bit different a different
approach, procedure foreseen
for aircraft.
So lots of interesting, even
some sometimes listed like football games
and and also
some serious stuff affecting affecting
operations.
So let's move a bit more into
airline systems, what airlines
are using.
First and most important is to
me is Iran inventory.
This is a system which is
a database of all flights,
but airline is running the schedule.
What kind of aircraft is this?
What kind of seating configuration is
there? And most importantly,
vis controls the whole
sales process.
So availability of seats
and ultimately the price you
pay for that is all controlled
here.
So this systems has a very
secret, deeply buried
business rules to
determine how much we will
be paying for for travel.
Next is reservations and
ticketing will be digging a bit more
into this today, because
this is a system which works mostly on
passenger name records.
Departure, departure, control and flight
management, departure control.
Isn't it slang for chicken?
So basically everything the chicken agent
uses, what gate agents use
belongs to this area.
So basically, if you work
in the system, you take the reservation.
Of a passenger and you,
except for baggage, she brings a boarding
pass, you put some information
into additional information on fear
and everything that
is needed to assist, while
one half of what is needed to
to have the aircraft ready for departure,
the flight management handles things like
like fuel and and
and
similar issues.
And second, important half
of getting the aircraft airborne is lost
control.
So basically, how much stuff
to put into the aircraft so that it
finally can depart.
How many passengers do we have?
What is what is your
load in Chicago?
How many containers, pallets
you have inside?
And so what? I was so you a little
example, maybe later.
Of course, we shouldn't forget avionics.
Unfortunately, I'm not into this area,
but but this is probably a subject
of its own, uh, how
avionics is built, how it's
deployed and controlled,
controlled, and
last but not least, in-flight
entertainment.
Both systems are getting pretty complex
right now.
While in one airports,
I have seen it's basically a
Linux network with IP, with
multicasting, with everything in
it. And it's all flight.
And additional
fees, which sometimes is done by the
airlines, sometimes it's done by by the
airport, sometimes by some other parties,
it's flight planning software are already
quite a few well-established packages
to to plan
the actual flight route.
So out of a system, you may, uh, you
may help prepare, watch
exactly what you're going to be taking
out of it. You will get your fuel
requirements.
So all the system
before departure of a plane, a kind of
resource game.
So how much passengers you put in?
So how much might be of it?
More cargo or less and maybe
put more, uh, more mail or
less so when you can put more
fuel.
Or as well, I've seen situations
like because of too much
fuel, we had to offload
passengers from the flight.
So this all has to be tightly coordinated
for systems are
interconnected and and,
uh, the goal is to get
everything out on time.
And that's an important next
important thing is money.
So sales of
most of the sales of airline
tickets is facilitated by our systems
called global distribution systems.
So this is a link between travel
agents, web portals
and airlines.
This is kind of wholesale
business of air travel.
Most of you have heard
who did fly, have certainly
interacted with one of those systems,
maybe the delay.
But
so the first one
system deployed was Sabur
Sabr Gallileo for
Worldspan.
And my favorite one I actually
use most is Amadou's.
The European one
for systems do
sell most of stuff, but airlines also
sell directly from the inventory.
So so you may get deals
online on the website,
which are not available
via GDS in general, beholds
business.
Is is
regulated because it's
very easy to manipulate the market
if you
if you show more seats
and one airline, unless it's on the other
airline and more expensive tickets and
one airline and less expensive tickets on
the other. So so
if there were cases in the past when
when it was manipulated and
and, uh, you
could play with market players, could
take advantage.
Also, those systems
are very heavily localized.
So that means it depends on where you
are. Who you are
is what you get.
So you can see ticket conditions
saying this ticket is available,
available only in Tehran
in March of 2015.
That's it.
It's nothing really unusual.
Sometimes if you get the confirmation of
your reservation where there are,
you are in there.
So they relate more or less
to their two very good systems.
And you can you can figure out
which system was was in charge
of your of your travel.
So let's go back to the
main subject here today, it's
the passenger name record,
what it is, what it why it is important,
we call it sometimes the booking or a
reservation.
So it's a structure that describes the
itinerary of a passenger
of a group of passengers,
sometimes a pretty large group.
Even this can include
travel by air, can be traveled
by hotels, by
you can include car rental where,
uh, well, you can
even say somebody
is maybe driving or moving
somewhere without using an airplane
from A to B.
And he continues a travel afterwards.
There is no formal industry standard for
the format of a piano,
but because they can exchange
between various systems.
They tend to be very similar.
So, for example, lots of abbreviations
and lot of additional services described
in DIPPENAAR
are pretty much standard.
So so you don't have an issue
of understanding of
our different systems.
The analyst identified by the record
locator and an example,
six and Tizard QR.
This is actually goes down
to some low level identifier
of on disk.
Initially, it was really, really sick,
like a block, no block
idea where the record was stored,
both systems have been created.
And, uh, so
so technology behind it is this
was pretty interesting
and also quite unique in the inventory
system.
I put some abbreviations, one A is a
abbreviation for Amadio system,
although it's not an airline, Lufthansa
and so on and so on. So so sometimes
you have a combination of two and you're
your passenger name record can be put
into systems like if you fly to
different airlines
or airlines using different systems,
uh, there's a pretty good chance that
your Europeana would be replicated and
will have two or three different
identifiers.
Uh, it's important to watch
if you check on the website, you want to
check in quickly which one which one
is right. Sometimes there's nothing
else, like just trying all of them and
see, maybe one of them works.
So subpoenas
are something which is like volatile,
it's pretty quick and dirty information,
it doesn't cost much
or except for access to the system,
doesn't cost anything to put
a reservation.
So double agent can just play with
a system and booked seats
for you, see different different
itineraries, different routes and price
them and they can do
it online
after that.
If if you if you want to to
to to purchase a certain route
and electronic ticket today will
be created.
And this indicates that's really the firm
has been paid. And the contract, the
actual contract has been has been
kind of signed.
So the ticket is valid between two
cities, not two airports.
So, for example, you can you can in
theory, use a ticket for two different
airports in one city.
It usually has a day or two when it's
valid in for some long number.
No, this is a real example from
from Suess. The first three digits
indicate the airline
and this number is never reused.
So pioneers are like like go
in, go out, delete the
numbers can be located,
is going to be reused.
It's like throwaway information of
all important electronic
ticket is something where your money
is.
So if you ever get the confirmation from
a travel, make sure you know Vatican
number, because that's your money,
Alvarez is
secondary.
It also specifies a third paid, which
was a tariff and important desmukh
condition conditions for not.
I heard some some of you had
some issues coming to Congress
one of the evenings, I think, two days
ago.
So I advise them, please
do check your fair note and make sure
to know what was penalty for, for
example, the penalty for a booking or
if you can rebook at all.
So all those little little things are
describing the fear, not
so electrolytic, it may or may not be
associated to the nerves of
typical consequences.
You create reservation your first, you
you sell the ticket and then
everything is combined.
But it's also many to many relationship.
You can have multiple tickets for one
journey, uh,
for example. Or, uh, you can,
uh, you can have multiple reservations
for one ticket.
So how do we go into creation
of business and how do we work with
them so.
Practically all reservation systems
are mainframe systems.
Originally meant to be accessed by
three hundred seventy green screen
terminal, so if anyone if you
had a chance to a mainframe
or see the mainframe system,
that's exactly how it looks like.
However, most
systems provide interactive interface
with real time transaction processing.
And it's really fast and given
the amount of transactions they process.
This is this is something which
is which is which is really
in the scale of a processing
going on. Fear is something which is
something that is hard to imagine.
Most airline systems
in reservation and ticketing systems they
run on then one of
the most.
I unknown operating systems,
it's called transaction processing
facility Schwartzkopf,
it was created in in 1960s
and actually
one has a feeling that if there
they're a real core of a system, didn't
really change the whole.
And those systems until today
are processing things like
airlines and credit card transaction
processing, for example.
Ibiza is using also also something
like that.
And a
number of installations worldwide
is certainly less than 100.
I heard some numbers and numbers around
50, 50 or 60,
and it looks like we
have even less and less installations
available. There has been many, many,
many I.T. projects to replace that.
You can imagine vendors like
big database vendors trying to create
something which is as fast
and as capable as this.
Well.
Looks like technology from the 60s still
holds strong and
we cannot really.
So once we get a system,
we know of a mainframe,
we need to connect somehow to it and I
would describe a typical workstation.
This is a typical new configuration.
So because it has mostly everything
the ticketing agents need, not not
everything, but ticket agent is somebody
who really has has all of devices
connected. So.
So you have multiple devices is
a tech printers.
So the thing you put on your it was put
on your back for boarding pass printers,
hard copy printers.
And I tell you, long live
dot matrix printers.
I've seen young agents coming
to work and like we have to offer
training to see those things, which I
remember from my high school, and it's
like what's
latissimus?
But given the amount of paper
which is produced so I can show you that
on board services for Airbus 380
is like this thick.
For just for one flight.
So there is no hardware
in printing business which can withstand
such a lot, and the best
thing is you can fix it with a
Lieberman or life mostly
and try doing that with your laser
printer or inkjet printer or
anything like that. I mean, what's going
to happen? Printer can just get stuck.
You take a knife, remove a paper, remove
the rest.
Keeps going
into devices which usually uses
magnetic stripe reader for
frequent flier cards and for credit cards
is sometimes is combined with OCR
scanner. So if you have a passport
or ID with a little readable
zone, if you get one from
digital Karaj here you can get
build houseflies where it also contains,
uh, appropriate, appropriate
information to be scanned.
So
barcode scanner, keyboard.
And what's interesting, although,
uh, many countries are jumping onto
biometric passports,
I have yet to see RFID
reader fear.
Well, actually, nobody needs a picture of
a passenger, but.
But hopefully yet.
So we don't have false.
At least I haven't seen both in action
yet.
And all of gear is supposed to be
connected to to to to
vent to our mainstream system,
but this was usually done by by HADAWAY
terminals for
things really got created
in the 60s.
And and
and the whole structure of ideology
behind it didn't really change today.
We are using actually PCs
and there is a thing called common
use terminal equipment, which is
which is platform software platform
built on today, it's Windows
XP.
I know.
I know. But it was always too it was
Windows and T and now it's XP.
Well, maybe
it's easier to lock down Windows XP.
I don't know. And
basically the goal of this is
to be able to to be able
to use the same PC for different airlines
so you can quickly change just to log
in to another user.
And you are with Lufthansa, you log out
to switch to and you are in
in, uh, I don't know, Aschiana into
one so and so on. So you can basically
switch software configurations on demand
as you can just need them for devices,
stay the same.
And, uh,
physical hardware. Stever same.
But the whole logic for networking
behind it changes.
If I also have service kiosk, which
is basically it's the same equipment
just designed to be used by, uh,
by the passenger himself.
So let's go to
to communications and how it all is
wired.
There are to be a few more,
but why are two leading companies
and one of them is called Sittar?
It's actually a corporation created
by the airlines and American
counterpart. It's Oracle or No Technology
Incorporated.
Those companies are telecom
or ISPs
to be allied.
So they provide the whole infrastructure
to get with everything networked.
So they created specially
created a huge Internet
wide area network.
And it's amazing because it's a covering
of over 220 countries
and it was done done well before
we even were thinking about the Internet.
So.
One of the most important parts and
functions of those networks is connecting
those terminals. We spoke before
to those mainframes.
Actually, it looks like.
It looks like that each device
is separately connected to the
house, so it has its own identifier,
device identifier similar to it
to your like, IP address or
something like this.
So the advantage is that is that you can
worldwide use device on some
other terminal. So Avenue, for
example, printing on printers,
which are like
ten thousand kilometers away.
And and this system handles that
easily.
Well, in the 60s, it was probably
really, really cool thing.
And try to do that on somebody else
printer here over the Internet.
Um, one function, uh,
on the, uh, in communication
area is messaging via telex.
So airline people really
say we write the telex and
we return and so we don't write emails.
There's a special protocol, um,
unfortunately, the specifications are
you have to pay for that to get into it,
and it's designed to
run on serial links and
well, occasionally it might run over IP
on some some IP protocol links.
But actually, the whole system is
designed to to function without
any and the Internet.
So here's a simple message.
Uh, from, uh,
from Seattle,
maybe let's skip to to to to to a more
expensive version.
Well, you can think of it like an
email. It's actually functionally
very similar to what SMTP is doing.
So it first took two lines are
a header.
So Kudi is a priority.
The sender and the recipient
are listed below.
The cool thing about Sittar addressing
system that the first letter, free
letters are always the airport code,
second to letters are usually the airline
code and those two
left are usually kind of standardized.
So you can actually guess the address
of the recipient if you don't know.
So, for example, I need to write
reservations of New Zealand
and Air New Zealand in Auckland.
So I just send it to Akl
NZ are.
And did you well, he got so far some
standard addresses which everybody is
using, and it's pretty useful, you don't
have to even think and
look up. What's your address?
You just give it to him right away.
So the first line is
of a type of a message vis a vis
example's continued polite message.
So this is the message which describes
the exact what is put
inside of cargo area of this particular
aircraft, followed by
the flight number
of a flight, no registration
number of aircraft.
And then we have this description,
description of what, Sloggett
11, all 12, 14 on the 42
positions. So it's like a map you
can imagine left, right and
and doors where of our containers are
located.
Three letters, PKK, each vis
a vis our container type
is typical
luggage, luggage, container,
IED. This code for Istanbul.
So it's aware of this container is
supposed to go away from kilograms.
And what it is see is that cargo
B.S. means business
class bags without
by means there no economy
class bags here.
By means, it's economy class container.
It matters because if you are not
unloading, process is really slow.
So you have to prioritize
which containers you want to be.
First out, for example,
for some short connections and you
want to have continues to be unloaded
quickly. And finally, there is a whole
five, four, five, we call it sometimes
Beli.
This is a part of aircraft while not not
have it, but it's
the part where you don't put containers,
you just put those items.
That's where animals are being
transported versus dogs in cages,
strollers, wheelchairs
and some funky items.
I don't know, like, like bikes sometimes
or,
or surfing boards or something
like that. And somebody put comments
to baby stories in
CPG five, which means somebody
we have to choose to charge to be
unloaded.
This would be the first thing which
probably goes out to the aircraft.
So passengers disembarking will get it.
Those messages are
can be KPM
is mostly written automatically by the
system, but you can write
it's free text, we just write an email
and then there is a wireless
communication.
Something you might have heard before in
the news, there is
a datalink wireless data link between
aircraft and the ground, which is called
Ackers Aircraft Communication, Addressing
and reporting system.
It went mainstream recently
because of Malaysian Flight 370
and it was widely discussed.
So this is lots of communication going
on very automatically.
So engine's reporting what's going on,
various systems reporting what's going
on, where pilots
are using it all the time.
When there's a particular application,
which is very interesting for us,
is a system
which one of part of
it just broadcasts
information about their flight suits as a
flight, no registration, no destination,
current altitude, speed and so on.
So and this is exactly what Flight Radar
24 comm is using.
Basically flat father of 24 is just a
network, crowdsourced network of
of people who are running
who are running receivers
from for voice messages.
They are not encrypted.
So everybody can see that
you put them on the map
and that's it.
But also other modes at CNBC, values
used in a question answer mode so
you can ask for more information.
You can also
transmit telex I meant before
on board and back using voice
communication and military
application called IFRS Identification,
friend or foe.
It's actually just a little protocol
extension and adds with some crypto.
So somebody sends you a challenge,
you have to sign it, respond
back, and then you are friendly aircraft
or not.
So there is a free and open software
called Acasti available
for sniffing ads.
So, of course, some radio equipment is
required and you can you can
just read file logs available on the
Internet.
People are sniffing miscommunications.
So so you can you can
see what's going on there.
So let's
go to some more
deeper down into into
into the actual.
It was innovation, and so
this is an example is a fake example,
but it looks really real how the
passenger name record of Amadeus looks
like.
So looking from top
as some indications of things with Singh
is an indication of the office,
there is a user ID or user
user ID hole created or recently
updated for records update.
It was updated.
And on the top
right hand, you, uh, you see Vall
locator.
Then you have the names of the
passengers.
One of the passengers is a child.
It was a child born and 1st January
2008.
And then you have lines
with additional information.
So line frien, line number four,
our itineraries.
So where are passengers flying with
flight numbers?
Booking class date.
Terminal number destination.
What were two means holding confirmed,
which means their reservation is
confirmed, so most of the
usual normal reservations, if you
have a seat, that's what it says,
times of departure and and
dates and your baggage allowance.
And then there is a mandatory contact
information sometimes is a
passengers contact information sometimes
is very useful for the airline to be able
to talk to to call you on your mobile and
ask if you are on
your way to to to boarding or
maybe somewhere else or
sometimes just travel agencies put it
inside of airline.
Number six is the key
element in the ticketing information.
In this case, the ticket has not yet been
issued and we are waiting to
see if a passenger to to
pay for the ticket. So, um,
the first word on
the line, like AP take
SSR
indicates type of record.
It's really after a while,
if you get used to it is really
straightforward.
SSR, these are special
requirements. Records would describe
anything, additional information
about the passenger, which is interesting
to know. So in this case,
information means the passenger is a
child, casualty's a universal
code for for child excuse
me, airline, which is flying with the
Singapore Airlines case.
It was information was confirmed from the
airline date of birth of a child.
And slash means
it's a poor man's hero.
Critical structure as free means.
This information is attached to segment
number of free services of a flight
variable number of free.
And PETA, which means it's attached to
the passenger number two to
Mr. John King,
and the similar second role is the
same for a for a for a
return flight for segment for
passenger two.
So in those
bugner, you can have some items
associated with some passengers.
For example, you're going to have two
passengers flying together.
But one of amnesia, Willshire assistance.
Or one of them is child or religious
and lines number nine to 10.
It's something for people who are using
Iasi or, uh,
maybe familiar with bot
entries. So reservation
systems have lots of bots operating
on them.
And we put some interesting messages for
travel agents and for airlines.
Uh, this bot
is looking all reservations
without a ticket and is saying.
Hello.
We need to take it before state,
otherwise this reservation would be
canceled.
So if you don't put a ticket number
behind this reservation, it will be
canceled. And those seats, which you have
now confirmed, so you actually are
blocking two seats will be
will be released.
Here are some examples of comments I've
seen live, X
is a so-called restricted comment or
secret comment, which can be seen only
by people who created this reservation.
This information, please kindly assist
packs to issue MCO for JFK
flight no, blah, blah, blah.
This means a passenger has paid
for the upgrade to business class and
appropriate document has to be issued.
There is a whole telegraphic language
used because
of telexes I mentioned before
are very costly.
It's actually, in some cases, even
every byte is being charged
for transmission.
So there's a whole system of of
abbreviations and language,
how to how to do that to make it short.
Another example, a special service
request.
As CIJ serves as a Wilcher
Askew HQ, one cannot walk long distance
elderly service information of passenger
needs, a wheelchair assistance,
factuality, three kinds of VAT.
And and
it is expected that somebody will pick
the passenger up and help them out for
him to talk to kids and also pick
them up on their on the airport
and offering for
comment is a check in common for Check-In
agents. But passenger is pregnant,
20 second week of pregnancy.
So.
This information is important
because of our limits,
if we're pregnant, how far along you
can fly? Sometimes I need the doctors.
Doctors are desperate, but
I just wanted to give an example
of something which is which
is certainly not necessarily meant
for public use.
Another item which
is related to terrorism discussions
regarding passenger of a plane are some
reservations is advanced passenger
information.
My first remark will be, but contrary to
what European Union says,
its advance passenger information,
so something which is provided in
advance, it's not advanced.
You will see lots of lots of sites
have make this error.
This is an innovation
related to of
visa, passport, immigration rules.
And airlines
have a possibility on sometimes a
requirement to put your passport
or visa information into the reservation
system.
To four five processing,
if a domestic
or within within within
European Union, for example, you might
not be required to do this.
Also some international flights,
airlines which don't do that.
But there around 30 countries
which require that countries
like Australia, New Zealand,
the United States of America,
of course, recently Myanmar
joint joined with this group in
November, um, this
year.
And sometimes misinformation is being
used to automatically verify
various electronic visas for many
countries. You can get Visa online.
It's just the record and airline
has a possibility to do online.
Quickly check if your
visa is valid and everything's fine to
do that, the airline has to put your
information first.
So if you see an agent swiping your
passport, sometimes twice, they
usually are putting putting false
information into the system.
Are the actual deals commands
to put the passport information
with a no date of issue and so on and
so on?
The visa information
and United States requires
providing an address where you
will be staying in the United States.
So there is also a facility
to do that in the reservation system.
So how what is
happening?
With force, with both passenger
data.
Varies.
There have been designed some kind of
messages format, so this is actually
something similar to what I've shown
before and
information about the passenger
is being transferred to the country
of a destination.
Uh, we have to
we have to show you
examples of that elastic
is a kind of simpler thing.
It's mainly used for
for visa purposes.
And Pinart government information
is like.
We need to know everything about a
passenger, actually
two models of apush model, so we are
supposed to deliver all
the passenger data at some certain point
before departure and usually
after departure of our aircraft.
And for simple model,
the government may sometimes ask the
airline automatically via the interface,
please give me more information about
passenger X that
airlines sometimes can also.
Online, send this information,
for example, if you do want to check if
you are online.
So here's an example of enlistee message.
Does anybody recognize performant?
Bingo. Very good.
This is an effect.
So for those who never heard, it's
standard related to electronic data
interchange.
So this is something which is an example
of the 90s.
You can see, well, it's
maybe difficult to explain the format,
but it's also
critical, so you can put items
and that sums up items into
it and this structure can be pretty
flexible.
So unbe un
ounsworth at the end of the headers,
so bizarre, the kind of envelope of a
whole message
under UN, HRC, the identification
of what kind of message is this?
And if you don't
look at classes and you don't look at
apostrophes and Collins,
it's kind of slowly starts
making sense.
This is now our well, maybe
not a new trend, but recently
there is an attempt for all airlines
switch from using plain
text telexes, which I showed
you before, to those kind of
messages.
Well, it's on there, but
to me, it's only a bit better than
ason that one.
It is passing this is
sometimes really, really horrible and
we can expect probably lots of
funny issues with that in the future.
So this is the message.
It's basically the most important
information is hidden in the middle of
it, the name of our passenger
and its address.
As
well, nationality somewhere else, you
have a country called us somewhere inside
a time of a message and so on and so on,
that's it's kind of.
It's kind of pretty, pretty easy.
I wanted to explain a bit some more
special case,
a bit special than all other countries
requiring some discretion is the
procedures requiring entering the United
States of America.
So we have a Department of Homeland
Security. You have to to deploy
to organizations, Transport Security
Administration, rather well known
for putting passengers, TSA
and Customs and Border Protection.
So which is the border police of United
States, they require similar
information to be delivered.
TSA called the secure flight.
This is required for all flights
in the US coming to the US,
departing from the US and also flying
over the United States.
Just if you don't live in land, you
need to submit this information to be
able to overfly, so they want
to check who's on the flight and if
some special name, some is
on the list, they may want may
want to deny you a possibility to to
arrive
one of.
Things of run do
not fly watch list, widely discussed
subject and
secondary screening process.
This is procedure while passenger
checks in and is informed.
Sorry, but the TSA has selected
you for secondary screening.
You have to go to this room.
There is a, for example, body scanner
or something like this, and you will be
asked some questions and you will be
additional. So if
you ask requires that this is all
done also prior to arrival,
prior to departure.
So you can see it happening in Germany
or in other countries where flights to
the United States
and other parts, which is
what sort of border protection is doing,
is requesting this API.
But passport information
and what we do fear
for countries which which are
participating in visa waiver program, for
example, Germany.
They do automated
HESTA processing salvors,
online visas, many visas which
you apply for the US if you have a German
passport.
So basically airline has a possibility
to online provided this information
to to to to the Department
of Homeland Security.
And it's getting response.
Asked a valid and not valid
or sometimes it was
valid, but has been denied.
One more lesser known feature
of this proceeding is
CBP advisory program,
and to quote the website, they
say, We deploy advisers in selected
overseas locations to provide
onsite training and technical
assistance to Foreign Customs
Administration of border control
agencies.
So these are actually American
employees being outside
and and.
How they work for you receive information
from from Department of Homeland Security
because they already have
information about passengers delivered
and they can approach
a passenger, ask him a
few questions or talk to airline.
Just by accident in August
this year, I found a
job advertisement for this position.
In Frankfurt, Germany, so they were
looking for four free agents,
so you need to have a serious screening,
a security clearance.
Here is a description of what BP is
doing.
And the description of a duty,
so you become a team of
homeland security professionals detecting
preventing terrorists and instruments
of terror from entering the United States
to up what assignments include.
Using current targeting and passenger
information to focus on high risk
passengers, make recommendations
to carriers and house to governments
regarding passengers who should not be
boarded or flights, this time
to the United States, dealing
with a highly sensitive situation
tactfully and diplomatically in order to
gain the cooperation of travelers
as airline carrier representatives and
foreign law enforcement personnel
serving as a subject matter expert and
advising, consulting CBP management and
host government officials and the
military requirements to enter the United
States.
But this is a kind of official who is
working in Frankfurt on the airport.
And he has just advisory
role to the.
Well, I don't imagine
an airline who wouldn't take advice
from such an officer,
somebody say, please do not barf
so.
And for the dessert
was an example of an arrogant message.
This is what is currently being discussed
in the United Europe European
Union regarding exchange of data with
with with with the United States
and Canada.
And this.
This record.
Contains everything
from the reservation.
Let me try to make it smaller, maybe.
Maybe a bit more small,
maybe a bit smaller.
Well, still didn't fit on screen, sorry,
so this includes not only the information
they have shown you, sometimes it's
pretty sensitive, not only additional
information, but information,
information, everything.
It also includes a complete history
of its record.
It includes all the comments and
what was written. Sometimes corporations
are putting really, really, really long
internal communications about trouble,
plus some checking information that
exceeds baggage and everything.
So this is actually what is now being
standardized.
And will be demanded from from from
countries in the European Union to
say, well, actually this exchange with us
is already functioning.
So so are not just only discussing
whether the scope is correct and so on.
What's interesting, most of the
specifications I spoke about
is for the
the commission is public and open
for implementation.
Most of Allen's stuff is not, but this is
so I think they are looking to
attract some open source developers in
this area,
so, so tough.
As a final note,
I just want to say something about
Fisher. What's what is now happening,
the systems.
So we are facing now migration
away from a simple text messaging.
So no longer simple email like think
it's going to be to be looked like as far
as horrible structured records which
have been served
was also a move away from
a peer-to-peer arrangement between
various airlines and Vav
that these two companies who try to
integrate their whole their whole
travel industry in like one or two
huge databases.
There is standardization of
government messages going on,
and you can we can
watch it online because all drafts
and specifications are public
and we are getting there with
new technology gadgets.
So recently,
things like tablets for flight crews
and automated biometric passport control.
These are things which are currently
deployed and this is all tightly
connected to the airline systems.
So there would be much more fun
and much more exploration to be done in
the future.
Well, however, things are going in a very
good direction.
It's I leave it up to you to decide.
So thank you for your patience with
everything to know now.
So I hope we still have some time
for questions.
If you do have a question, please be so
kind of line up and you have to six
microphones in the room.
It's do we have a question
from the Internet?
Yes, we have fliers asking.
You mentioned this as as
as escort four times the letters on
the boarding pass that stands for
enhanced security screening is required.
We does. To show up and who can
change the status.
So is enhanced security.
Secondary screening status is
first checking agency receives
that information when we check somebody
in. So before they print your
boarding pass, it has to
be should be printed or handwritten
on the boarding pass and it should
be clean, clean. It's clearly
stated to the passenger.
What's going on.
Uh, I remember was a story a few
years ago when somebody discovered that
they did scan the boarding pass.
They decoded the barcode
and this information was there
and it was marketed as a kind of security
risk.
It is not because this is actually
once it's decided, it's public.
And the only
thing you can do if you are too often
selected for the screening, you can
complain to DHS and
you will get a special, no unique
identifier of your person,
which you can provide in for reservations
to maybe
mitigate the risk of being selected
every time because of our passengers who
are being selected at random every
time for the screening.
I hope to answer yes.
Thank you.
If you do want to leave, please do that
more quietly yourself to people who
would like to listen to you on a
microphone, too. I think you lined up the
first post.
Yeah.
So often
when I'm changing carriers, I'll fly
like I'm based in San Francisco.
So usually I'll check
in and I'll get all my boarding passes
for a particular trip, which would be
like United to Sydney
and then Sydney to Auckland on Air New
Zealand or on land or
commonly another trip that I've done in
San Francisco to Washington,
to Munich and then Munich to three east.
And so I get like
a boarding pass of all United Stock for
the whole trip. But then I get there and
they're very insistent that I have to
change my
ticket. My remaining tickets go to
Lufthansa.
I was almost denied boarding Sydney to
Auckland because I
did not have my entire boarding
passes. All of them were not printed on
Air New Zealand stock.
So it's one thing if you could talk about
this.
Well, if it's something
like a marketing thing or they just want
to see it on their stock, that's one
thing I understand.
But it seems like there is something
deeper because this is across like,
you know, at least most of the carriers
and Star Alliance.
This is actually very strange to me
because first boarding passes
are kind of standardized, even if a
barcode on it is standardized.
So, for
example, says issuing one
boarding pass for free segments.
So if we just save paper and if I give
you one piece of paper for onward
flights, so
for reasons which agents sometimes
exchange, boarding passes are
well, sometimes it's allergies because
it's more information if you're for the
airline as well,
like your frequent phone number is fair
or maybe some additional information
which they want to show you is fair.
So sometimes they do it to provide more
information. But I don't think it's your
case right now here.
And sometimes you
are unfortunately required
to provide some additional information
at the checking desk, even though you've
been checked in already two days ago with
some other carrier.
But some of your information, mostly with
passport information I talked about, is
missing.
So passengers are surprised.
They've got a whole stack of boarding
passes. But we are still being paged to
to to to to to do something.
And something strange is being done to
them. But actually, apart
from changing a seat or
wanting to provide you more information
on the boarding pass, like
new boarding time or new gate
or something like this, it shouldn't
really happen.
This is this is across like this
is across.
Yeah. This is this is nothing to do with
like I didn't decide to upgrade the last
minute.
I didn't change my passport
number or anything like that.
It's just you get to the gate and they're
like, oh, you do not have this on
Lufthansa. I'm sorry, you have to go
back out to check in, exit through
security. Oh, and the flight's leaving in
fifteen minutes.
Yeah. I mean those interfaces
because airlines have universalis
interfaces to exchange Europeana
information and those interfaces, just
like everybody knows in the networking,
are not perfect.
So sometimes I see lots of
input errors like fat free passengers
traveling together from the same airport
and one of them by
get some information missing.
Sometimes one letter is wrong with
something. Checksum was wrong.
I don't know. But but there are lots of
lots of interoperability issues
and well, agents have no choice
just to about to to harass you and
to request that.
OK, so it's a mystery to you, too.
Jeffrey, thanks. Thanks.
Thanks for the Q&A. Will you still be
around for further questions as well?
Running a little out of time here
and then give them
some polls for giving the talk
and being a you.
Thank you very much.