Airlines run one of the most data-intensive operations of any sector, handling high volumes of long-lived sensitive data on behalf of passengers and customers worldwide.

A typical passenger booking brings together personal information, payment card details, national IDs and visa records, travel history, loyalty scheme profiles, and special assistance requests that may disclose sensitive health, disability or religious information.

Customer trust is crucial to the airline industry, and ensuring their data is safe is as important as their travel experience in preserving their loyalty.

Additionally, airlines are now designated as critical national infrastructure in many major markets, bringing additional security and reporting obligations. Ground Labs Enterprise Recon helps airlines find sensitive data wherever it resides, on-premises and in the cloud, so they can reduce exposure and demonstrate compliance. Paired with Professional Services support, this can be accelerated through customized deployments and targeted discovery scans led by Ground Labs specialists.

Critical infrastructure, critical obligations

As with other regulated sectors, the airline industry is operating under burgeoning regulatory scrutiny. Now considered critical infrastructure by many major markets, they now carry cybersecurity obligations independently of privacy law and consumer data protection.

Across most jurisdictions, these are based on three core capabilities:

  1. A risk-based security program built on an accurate, up-to-date inventory of assets and data
  2. Defined incident detection, response and reporting procedures
  3. Evidence-backed assurance reviews verifying the effectiveness of these programs

An attacker’s dream

Airlines are an attractive target for malicious actors seeing a 600% increase in cyberattacks in 2025. For smaller operators, the challenge is in resourcing their cybersecurity efforts, while for larger airlines it’s the breadth and complexity of their digital estate.

Recent incidents have centered on help desks, contact centers and customer service platforms where large volumes of passenger information are received and processed through a wide range of vulnerable inbound channels before they enter core reservation platforms.

Attackers target weak points in the chain, whether that’s exposed systems or manipulation of service personnel. Minimizing aggregation of sensitive information outside core platforms is a key component of reducing the attack surface and protecting the airline and its customers from cyberattack.

Privacy compliance without borders

An international airline is subject to the privacy law of its home state, every market it sells into and, in many cases, every country it serves. The same passenger record can be governed by several regimes at once, each with its own rules on lawful basis, retention, cross-border transfer and breach notification.

The personal data retained by airlines is uniquely varied and can include several categories of sensitive personal information subject to stringent safeguards, such as special assistance needs, disabilities and religious beliefs.

Beyond names and contact details, a typical carrier holds passport and visa data, advance passenger information, dates of birth, data about children and unaccompanied minors, frequent flyer histories, biometric data from self-service and boarding processes, and crew and employee records. Much of this ends up copied into notes, emails, spreadsheets and analytics extracts where it becomes harder to govern.

PCI DSS: From booking to boarding

There are few sectors that accept payments through as many channels as an airline. As well as formal channels, desperate customers share unsolicited details when seeking help and support for their travel woes. It’s these unexpected locations that create the biggest blind spots for organizations across industries.

For airlines, this is compounded by the range of services and payment opportunities they offer - from ticket bookings, upgrades and add-ons to in-flight services and partner purchase programs - operated by different business units with separate back-office support and service channels.

PCI DSS v4.x made finding these copies a formal obligation. Requirement 12.5.2 requires scope to be documented and confirmed at least every 12 months and following significant changes. In practice, this means implementing formal mechanisms for confirming that cardholder data is not present beyond the boundary of the cardholder data environment (CDE). This requirement is further reinforced by control 12.10.7, which requires incident response procedures whenever PAN is detected where it is not expected.

Frequent flyers, frequent targets

Frequent flyer programs provide incentives for loyal customers, and many align themselves with a limited number of airlines to take advantage of what these schemes offer. As travellers accumulate points, the associated personal and travel information combines to create a comprehensive profile of an individual.

While account takeover fraud is a concern, identity theft is a greater risk to customer trust with a lasting legacy that simple refunds and points incentives can address.

Many full-service carriers also sell holiday packages through the same customer accounts and loyalty relationships. To deliver these extended services, much of that data is shared with hotels, destination partners and insurers through email and spreadsheets, further extending the reach of data outside core passenger service platforms.

Beyond the passenger

Passenger and card data dominate regulatory attention, but an airline's commercial data also carries significant value, from fare structures and revenue management models, to slot holdings and fuel hedging positions, to aircraft purchase and lease terms.

Full-service airlines delivering cargo, engineering and maintenance services bring still more proprietary and commercially sensitive information into the picture.

Because these data types are unique to each organization, protecting it depends on customized search capabilities that support internal identifiers, project code names, engineering and catalog IDs.

Tech evolution without the data baggage

Aviation is recognized as an industry with a low to no tolerance approach to risk, relying heavily on robust procedures to ensure passenger and crew safety. The security of passenger and commercial information must adopt this same low tolerance position to retain the trust and loyalty of their customers.

To better service customers, offering greater access and budget offerings, airlines are replacing legacy passenger service, loyalty and operations platforms, transitioning services and outdated infrastructure to the cloud, and deploying AI to maximize efficiency. Without adequate planning, each initiative represents a point at which sensitive data can be copied into an environment with weaker controls or wider access.

AI raises the stakes further. AI assistants and GenAI tools surface whatever their users can access. AI readiness starts with knowing what is in corporate systems and data repositories before they are connected to an AI system.

Future threat, today’s problem

Encrypted data stolen today can be stored and decrypted once quantum computing matures. Globally, governments are establishing migration timelines as soon as 2030 for high-risk sectors, including transport and aviation.

Passport and biometric data, travel histories of government and corporate travelers, and aircraft purchase and engineering records are a primary target, because they will remain valuable and relevant long after they are collected.

Deciding what to protect first depends on knowing where long-lived, high-value data sits and whether it needs to be kept at all.

Enterprise Recon: Data intelligence for the modern airline

Reducing data risk depends on knowing where sensitive data resides and whether it should be there at all. Enterprise Recon provides that visibility across the digital estate.

More than 300 predefined data types cover payment and personal information across over 50 countries. Custom patterns extend coverage to identifiers unique to each carrier, from ticket and frequent flyer numbers to engineering IDs and project code names.

Findings can be risk-scored and remediated through redaction, quarantine, encryption or secure deletion. Enterprise Recon delivers audit-ready evidence that confirms PCI DSS scope, supports privacy and incident response, de-risks cloud and AI programs and identifies long-lived data to prioritize for post-quantum protection. How quickly that evidence builds depends on how well the deployment reflects the environment and how much capacity internal teams have to act on it.

Ground Labs Professional Services can support customization of deployments through development of custom data patterns, scan profiles and system integrations. Where internal teams are stretched, Ground Labs specialists can deliver scanning and analysis to support bespoke initiatives from compliance programs, migration planning, AI preparedness or quantum readiness.

To explore how Enterprise Recon and Ground Labs Professional Services can support your airline’s data security priorities, book a meeting with our team.