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Lufthansa Systems’ PCI Compliance Engine protects credit card data with minimum effort
Credit card data is a precious resource. Today’s airline industry would be unable to operate without credit cards as they serve as a convenient means of payment for ticket purchases and other transactions. On the other hand, fraud and data abuse are steadily growing, prompting the credit card industry to set strict data protection rules. The PCI Compliance Engine, presented recently by Lufthansa Systems, is a powerful tool to meet these requirements without a large investment. Launching customer Lufthansa has just completed the implementation for certain applications in the financial area.
Airlines and passengers rely on credit cards for many individual purposes, many of them not involving financial transactions. Check-in, seat reservation, frequent flyer identification, upgrades, lounge access and on-board purchases are just some of the areas in which credit cards are used. But with each transaction, credit card data may be abused. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, an association of leading credit card companies, has therefore mandated that all entities processing credit card data need to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). It requires all organizations using the data to fulfill a list of 380 individual rules and regulations. Failure to do so may result in fines or even the loss of the transaction license. Airlines, with their large number of financial and non-financial card transactions, are a key target group for this regulation, and no carrier can afford to be cut off from the use of credit cards. The PCI Compliance Engine from Lufthansa Systems offers a unique approach to fulfilling these requirements. The technology eliminates the card numbers within the affected applications and replaces them with artificial IDs. The Engine is the only data unit which isolates and stores the credit card numbers.
By shielding the affected applications they can be taken out of the scope of PCI DSS. As a consequence, the 380 requirements no longer apply, and the effort necessary to reach PCI DSS compliance is reduced significantly. An additional benefit for airlines is the fast implementation being achieved by a gradual and risk-minimizing procedure. Before its market launch, the PCI Compliance Engine had been certified to comply with the latest Payment Applications Best Practices (PABP) standard of card company Visa. The certification by independent auditors proves the high quality standards according to which the product had been developed. Airlines can rest assured that the solution protects themselves, passengers and card companies as it significantly reduces the risk of fraud. Lufthansa Systems has since presented the PCI Compliance Engine at various industry events. Feedback from the airline community was very encouraging as everyone is aware of the data security problem – and the high costs and effort of fulfilling all regulations of the PCI Standard in a traditional way. Launching customer Lufthansa is now using the PCI Compliance Engine for its revenue accounting processes.
Intelligent IT to reduce environmental impact of aviation
Lido/Flight from Lufthansa Systems cuts fuel costs and emissions
For the first time a global industry voluntarily has agreed on a self-commitment for protecting the climate. IATA presented ambitious goals – an average of 1.5% better fuel efficiency annually to 2020 and half the 2005 carbon emissions by 2050. Since it will not be easy to meet these targets solutions to save fuel are high in demand. Combining IT expertise and profound knowledge about airline operations, Lufthansa Systems has developed its sophisticated flight planning solution Lido/Flight that has automated the flight planning and dispatching process. A flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles, for instance, is not necessarily performed on the basis of shortest distance. More importantly, dispatchers must evaluate flight routes by factoring in anticipated weather conditions, such as high winds or zones affected by strong atmospheric turbulences and e.g. ATC-charges. Lido/Flight gives dispatchers a wide range of optimization options to define the most fuel- or cost-efficient routing.
By using Lido/Flight airlines can reduce their fuel consumption by up to five percent. Optimizing routes with Lido/Flight can save, for example, on a flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles up to four tons of kerosene. This prevents more than 12 tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. The planning of the routes depends on Lufthansa Systems’ own navigation database which contains worldwide aeronautical and other relevant data. It meets the most stringent requirements regarding precision and data integrity. It contains the departures, approach and arrival procedures of nearly 10.000 airports plus 11.000 airway segments and 129.000 waypoints.
Furthermore, flight planners and dispatchers need to adhere to current air traffic capacity and flow management rules. These highly complex rules, also known as Traffic Flow Restrictions (TFR), are set by air traffic control authorities in order to guarantee a smooth traffic flow while at the same time optimizing airspace capacity and safety. As an industry first, Lido/Flight TFR automatically considers even partly restricted airways, suggesting by-passes where legally permitted, for the most effective combination of airway segments. On certain flights this feature alone is able to save up to two percent of fuel. Lufthansa Systems also keeps track of current ATM developments and developed the Lido/Flight FreeFlight. This innovative solution enables airlines to benefit from free flight airspaces, where an airline is allowed to plan any route between A and B without being restricted by airways. This opens up almost unlimited options to calculate the most-efficient routing.
Yet it also increases the demand on flight planning systems dramatically. Lido/Flight FreeFlight significantly improves the fuel efficiency of every flight. Lufthansa Systems’ first simulations of the economical impact of free flight trajectories in an “artificial Single European Sky” have shown fuel improvements of more than three percent. So it is hardly surprising that Lido/Flight is among the most successful products of the German airline IT specialist. The share of flights in Europe which are being dispatched with the help of Lido/Flight is approaching more than 40 percent.