It’s late November at a major international airport. A woman walks calmly past a line of travelers, glides through what appears to be an airline personnel lane, and approaches a gate. She doesn’t show a boarding pass. She didn’t clear a traveler security checkpoint. Yet she boards a flight bound for Europe, undetected, unverified, and unstopped.
This was not a hypothetical scenario. In 2024, a 57-year-old woman successfully boarded an international flight after bypassing multiple security checks, slipping through an employee-only access lane, and blending into a boarding group without ever scanning a ticket.
The question is no longer whether airports should upgrade employee access control. It is whether facilities leaders are ready to treat it with the same urgency as passenger facilitation. For facilities managers, every door, gate, and corridor is part of the security envelope. Each must balance operational speed with uncompromising security, and each must withstand regulatory scrutiny when something goes wrong.
Airports do not need more friction for staff. They need systems that provide certainty about who is moving through restricted areas and why they are there. Modernizing employee access is not only a technical upgrade; it is an operational responsibility that defines how safe, resilient, and compliant a facility can be.
The Other Side of the Terminal
The curb-to-gate passenger experience has advanced rapidly. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have deployed biometric e-gates, facial recognition boarding, and digital ID programs. More than 40% of airports now support biometric-enabled boarding through programs such as CBP’s Simplified Arrival, according to SITA. These systems are fast, efficient, and backed by rigorous identity verification controls.
But once you move beyond the traveler-facing side of operations, the tools often change. Secure areas behind the checkpoint—baggage loading zones, catering docks, jetways, maintenance corridors—are still largely accessed using proximity badges and PIN codes. These methods confirm that someone has presented a valid credential. However, they do not confirm who that person is, a gap that facial authentication is uniquely designed to close.
Rather than layering on more physical barriers, airports have an opportunity to make access smarter by upgrading to identity-based controls like facial authentication. These systems confirm who is entering a secure area—not just that a badge or PIN was used. Because facial authentication is effortless, fast, and cannot be lost or shared, it strengthens access without slowing down operations. The result is improved operational continuity, reduced insider risk, and the auditability needed for rapid incident response.
Where Verification Ends, Risk Begins
Security systems are only as strong as their weakest access points. In airports, tailgating (when an unauthorized individual follows behind an authenticated one) and credential sharing continue to undermine even the most sophisticated physical security strategies.
In June 2024, a contractor attempted to pass through an employee checkpoint at Philadelphia International Airport with a loaded firearm concealed in his bag. TSA officers eventually stopped him, but not before he had already passed through the initial entry point. The TSA revoked his credentials immediately. Incidents like this highlight how quickly a single credentialed individual can become a threat—and how vulnerable facilities remain without effective tailgating detection or identity verification at every controlled door.
Globally, insider risk is growing. A 2025 analysis from Osprey Flight Solutions tracked dozens of incidents involving aviation employees and contractors, including smuggling, sabotage, and misuse of authorized access. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has also reported that more than 1.8 million workers have unescorted access to secure areas of commercial airports. TSA, the GAO noted, has limited visibility into how credential revocations and access audits are managed across those facilities.
Designed for Throughput, Built for Trust
Airport operations run on tight timelines. Catering crews, baggage handlers, maintenance staff, and fuelers all work under pressure, often in overlapping environments where a delay in one area can ripple across the schedule. That urgency is why access systems must move people quickly, but also why they cannot compromise on security.
Modern biometric systems have demonstrated that speed and accuracy can coexist. The TSA’s deployment of more than 2,100 facial recognition units shows that identities can be verified in seconds, even in high-volume environments, according to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Research on airport biometrics has also highlighted improvements in identity verification and fraud reduction, as shown in the PARAS Implementing Biometric Technology at Airports Report.
For employees, contractors, and vendors, applying the same standards helps eliminate vulnerabilities and close gaps that could allow unauthorized access. The goal is to make every threshold auditable, defensible, and aligned with compliance expectations. Modern biometric systems support that standard by generating detailed logs of access attempts, user enrollments, and administrative actions—data that can be integrated into broader security information and event management (SIEM) systems to streamline compliance reviews and incident response.
Back-of-House Security Is the Next Frontier
Most travelers never see the jet bridge from the crew side or pass through the maintenance corridors that connect airside operations. But these access points matter just as much as the checkpoint at the front of the terminal.
When access is based on possession of a credential—i.e., a badge, PIN, or uniform—it creates space for uncertainty. Modernizing staff and vendor access with facial authentication is one of the most direct ways airports can strengthen security, reduce risk, and improve accountability.
With biometric privacy legislation advancing at the state level, zero-trust frameworks gaining traction, and digital identity already reshaping the passenger experience, now is the time to bring employee access up to the same standard. Airports that lead on this front will not only close long-standing gaps, but will define what secure, efficient infrastructure looks like for the next generation of aviation.
Tina D’Agostin is CEO of Alcatraz, a provider of frictionless, AI-powered biometric access control solutions to improve security through facial authentication.