3. How big is Big Data?

Big Data is like this buzzword gets thrown around a lot, but the specifics of it are much more nuanced. It's not some vast reservoir that will eventually hold every single data point across every aspect of the aviation industry, which various market players will ultimately be able to cherry-pick the data sets they want to use.

According to a report by Data Science Central, an A350 generates around 2.5 terabytes of data per day. And looking at the flight figures, the global A350 fleet has over 240 million in-service flight hours.

We'll save you from the math. That's a lot of data.

So making the most out of data-driven ecosystems really depends on what you need for your business, and how utilising specific points of data to enhance your offers to your customers. For example, do you want to build datasets to facilitate your customer analytics? Or do you want to collect data set around your core business to assess performance?

"I think every business should focus on customer analytics. It doesn't matter if it's big data or small data. But one of the most essential things is that businesses differentiate the difference between core business and customer data. Customer analytics is something that every business is just going to need to have as we move into the future. And core business data will help with profitability, efficiency and performance. Most importantly, build the utilisation of these specific data sets into the business strategy, focus efforts on what best serve themselves and their customers, and forget the rest of the noise."

4. Who owns the data rights?

The question of data rights is one that extends far beyond the reaches of the aviation industry. The topic of data breaches, hacks, and misuse of data for nefarious means is often a cyclical topic in mainstream news. And while Facebook, Google and Amazon, arguably the goliaths that made Big Data a possibility, are constantly under fire because of their treatment of data rights, those same questions can be aimed at the aviation industry?

Aftermarket players looking towards data analytics need to ask themselves the difficult questions regarding how they value their own data.

If you're sharing your data on a platform and participating in a data ecosystem, who owns your data? Is it still the property of your company? Can others lay claim to it? Will your company have any control over how others use that data on the same platform? And finally, as with the questions often posed to the Mark Zuckerberg's and Jack Dorsey's of the world, do the owners of the platforms have any social responsibility to govern how that data is used.

"I think our industry is very much behind if you compare it to other industries. Especially when you're talking about big data. The aviation industry is a complex industry. The products that we are using are very complex, and there are a lot of regulations."

Following Bjarke Sejersen's thought, because of those strict regulations, it could be that the aviation industry avoids repeating the history that happened with the large social networks. Focusing more on being the first one to build an ecosystem that will gain market dominance, and less on what social responsibilities around data sharing should govern that ecosystem.

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5 things to consider about Big Data in the aviation aftermarket