Abstract
It has been said that most terrorist attacks in the recent past failed due to intelligence rather than to physical screenings. However, obtainment and analysis of such data forms a major challenge for aviation supply chains, e.g., due to the high number of involved actors as well as different transport modalities used during pre-carriage. Big data has become a broadly discussed concept that aims at integrating and analyzing large data sets from different sources, commonly representing a variety of data structures and formats. Big data is a promising approach to support risk-based threat detection for aviation supply chains. Supply chain visibility will be increased so that the movement and handling of cargo can be traced and abnormal patterns of operation can be identified in an efficient and effective manner. The paper will examine the concepts of big data and how they relate to the challenges in aviation supply chain security.