Friday, September 24, 2010

Quick quantitative estimations

Some months ago I wrote a blog post on "Testing the numbers, on the fly". Well, yesterday I was flying - literally - out of Frankfurt and saw a sign that said, "New A Plus Pier in Terminal 1 under construction". It went on to say that the pier could handle 6 million passengers a year and was 180,000 square meters in floor area.

It's interesting to know this ratio of passengers to floor area, I thought.

Then I thought, hmm... does this ratio make financial sense? So I began to guesstimate.

Let's say that real estate here is about the cost of real estate where I live. At bulk discounted rates, it might be 100 dollars per square foot, plus minus a bit. Or 1000 dollars per square meter approximately.

So the new pier is 180 million dollars in investment. 30 dollars per passenger.

For a payback period of 5 years, you need 6 dollars per passenger per year - probably taken out of retail concessions in the West. But Indian airport retail doesn't do well yet.

Well, 6 dollars is equal to Rs. 300. Then it hit me - the airport tax at Delhi airport used to be Rs. 300. And I smiled.

Of course the calculations won't be exact. But it is always fun to get close.

3 comments:

DIVYESH said...

Respected Sir,
It is indeed a nice positive blog and I totally agree with your statement about new India..

Thank you,
Divyesh Shah.

Manoj Joshi said...

Thanks for sharing the blog...
Personally speaking your blog always help me to see the simple things with a different angle, whether it is testing the numbers on the fly or the diwali cracker blog. I loved each of them and also try to analyse things in the different way.
Not always i am accurate, but i am happy that i am among those who are doing this.
Thanks

Unknown said...

Hello Sir,

This is unbelievable. Thank you for showing this direction, probably I would have never given a thought to it. It's really amazing.

Regards,
Proton Robin Singh Vasu (Fall' 09)