Travel Stats Man

Airlines Owe Passengers Over 3 Billion Dollars in Compensation (and Counting)

Passengers bumped on overbooked flights has been in the news ALOT recently.

Many flyers on EU airlines (or from EU countries) are becoming privy to the fact they could be eligible to claim compensation for delayed flight in Europe. Airhelp, a company that helps passengers claim compensation from airlines, advises delays over 3 hours are typically eligible for compensation.

If you live in the UK you’ll be aware of the huge liability banks have had for PPI payouts in the last 10 years. With many airlines operating on the brink of bankruptcy according to some sources; how much are airlines potentially liable for in compensation payouts?

Methodology

Airhelp, a company that helps passengers claim compensation for delayed flights, provided me with a dataset of airports around the world, number of delayed flights (and seats) eligible for compensation, and a calculated estimate of what the total potential liability was for each airport for compensation during 2016 (based on regulation EC261 which covers delayed, cancelled and overbooked flights). Note, compensation is paid by airlines, not airports. Therefore, this post highlights the airports with the highest number of delays, over-bookings, etc, but is not split out to consider individual airlines.

Whilst the dataset covers a large number of airports around the world (5000), only a subset of airports have data for delayed eligibly (574). This is for 2 reasons; 1) compensation rules differ around the world (see EU vs. US, for example) therefore it is difficult to produce accurate estimates for each geography. 2) Airhelphas a commercial interest in the EU market.

Airhelp provided monetary data in Euro’s (EUR). To keep currency consistency with my other posts on this blog I have converted all figures to US Dollars (USD) using the exchange rate of 1 EUR = 1.09 USD (correct 30th April 2017 via xe.com).

Additional datasets used were from the FAA (US) and CAA (UK) for total aircraft movements at each airport (to calculate the percentage of delayed flights within the US and UK). This data did not differentiate between arriving and departing flights (only departing flights are considered for compensation eligibility), I therefore assumed 50% of operation were departures (roughly in line with LHR figures).

Results

Spread of liability by airport

Download chart.

The majority of airports were liable for less than 10 million in compensation during 2016 (241 airports), though 61 airports were liable for more than this.

241 airports were liable for more than 1 million USD, and 455 liable for over 100K USD, and 566 liable for over 10K USD. Only 9 were liable for less, with VST Stockholm Vasteras Apt bottom of the list with a liability to 14 passengers totalling $3815 USD (avg. $272.50 USD each).

The compensation liability for all airports considered (574) is 3 billion USD ($3,001,339,552.25 USD).

Top 10 airports by liability

rank liability	airport code	seats eligible for liability	liability USD 2016 30Apr17	Seats per flight eligible for liability	Avg. Compensation per seat USD 2016 30Apr17
1	LHR	544,343	265,998,150	167	488
2	CDG	370,152	168,216,158	157	455
3	FRA	284,619	118,030,459	143	414
4	MAD	256,543	98,339,909	144	384
5	AMS	250,153	95,679,110	121	383
6	LGW	239,801	87,262,730	143	364
7	JFK	120,174	78,582,024	192	654
8	MUC	235,045	78,321,378	111	334
9	CPH	200,177	70,264,152	121	351
10	BCN	187,368	61,357,899	147	327

Full list.

The top 3 airports (by liability) accounted for 0.5 billion USD of total liability for ll airports ($552,244,766.75 USD). The top 10 airports accounted for 1.1 billion USD of total liability ($1,122,051,967.75 USD), or one-third of total liability.

Airlines who flew out of Heathrow LHR during 2016 were liable for passenger compensation claims to the tune of $0.25 billion USD ($265,998,150.00 USD) — unsurprising given capacity issues at the airport.

Spread of delays

If you booked a flight that departed from Europe or was with a European airline, you might have rights under EU law if your flight is delayed to claim the following compensation:

Delay to your arrival	Flight distance	Compensation USD 30Apr17
3 hours or more	Less than 1,500km	272.50
	Between 1,500km and 3,500km	436.00
	More than 1,500km and within the EU	436.00
3-4 hours	More than 3,500km, between an EU and non-EU airport	327.00
4 hours or more	More than 3,500km, between an EU and non-EU airport	654.00

Full table.

Download chart.

Average compensation per seat groups at both end of the spectrum, 175 airports owe an average of $270 – $300 USD per seat (lowest claim possible is $272.50 USD), 174 owe an average of $630 – $660 USD (max claim possible is $654 USD). Note, values are per seat (not passenger) this is because a passenger can be delayed multiple times per year and thus eligible for more than one compensation claim.

Worst performing airports for on-time departures (US / UK only)

rank liability	airport code	departures est	flights eligible for liability	% flights liable	seats eligible for liability	liability USD 2016 30Apr17
1	LCY	42,585	953	2.24%	55,838	15,336,355
2	LHR	237,482	3262	1.37%	544,343	265,998,150
3	LGW	140,333	1677	1.20%	239,801	87,262,730
4	ABZ	48,078	541	1.13%	23,151	6,319,139
5	SOU	21,412	224	1.05%	8,018	2,205,343
6	EDI	61,110	609	1.00%	48,585	14,382,632
7	GLA	49,064	459	0.94%	24,779	7,058,731
8	BHX	56,592	506	0.89%	41,785	12,705,858
9	LBA	22,152	183	0.83%	7,727	2,348,432
10	NCL	28,132	231	0.82%	11,767	3,738,673

Full list.

UK airports make up all 10 of the worst airports for departure operations by compensation liability. 2.24% of flights taking of from LCY London City Airport were liable for compensation claims from passengers.

Note, this dataset only contains US and UK airports for comparison.

Improvements

There are two clear improvements that can be made to allow for a more comprehensive analysis.

Firstly, having access to addition compensation data for more airports with local compensation rules (vs. just EU) could provide interesting analysis into best regions for compensation, worst regions for liability, etc.

Secondly, accurate operations departure data for all major worldwide airports would improve calculations. Due to the datasets used, the above workings only consider some US airports and UK airports, whilst also use estimated commercial departure figures (departures=total commercial operations / 2).

tl;dr

Airlines who flew out of Heathrow LHR during 2016 were liable for passenger compensation claims to the tune of $0.25 billion USD ($265,998,150.00 USD). The compensation liability for all airports considered (574) is 3 billion USD ($3,001,339,552.25 USD).

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

We Are Now Taking Off From 22000 Feet

It is very likely you’re within 50km of an airport — even if it’s a very small one.

Passenger volumes continue to rise year-on-year, and newer, larger airports are needed to keep up with demand. My local major airport, London Heathrow (LHR), claims to operate at 98% capacity.

London alone has 5 major airports, and many fast growing commercial ones such as London Southend (SEN). Although if it’s actually in London is debatable!

With a recent inquisitiveness about airports, I began questioning. How many airports are out there? Where are they? Here are some interesting statistics.

Methodology

OurAirports maintain a comprehensive document of airports around the world. It currently lists over 46000 airports and includes information such as location, elevation, runways, and identification codes. This data was used to perform all analysis.

Analysis

Airports by country

Rank by airport count	country	count_airports
1	United States	21487
2	Brazil	3833
3	Canada	2434
4	Australia	1879
5	Russia	919
6	France	789
7	Argentina	710
8	Colombia	701
9	Germany	663
10	Venezuela	592

Full list.

Perhaps to be expected the US has the most airports, but I did not expect it to be almost 18,000 more than the second placed country, Brazil. Although most of the airports in the US are classified a small (private) airports, 21.5k airports is still a huge number!

Worlds highest / lowest airports

elevation_rank	type	name	country	elevation_ft	elevation_mt
1	heliport	Siachen Glacier AFS Airport	India	22000	6,706
2	small_airport	Daulat Beg Oldi Advanced Landing Ground	India	16200	4,938
3	small_airport	Laguna Choclococha Airport	Peru	14965	4,561
4	small_airport	Fausa Airport	Peru	14809	4,514
5	small_airport	San Rafael Airport	Peru	14422	4,396
…	…	…	…	…	…
46231	small_airport	Brawley Municipal Airport	United States	-128	-39
46232	small_airport	Ein Yahav Airfield	Israel	-164	-50
46233	small_airport	Cliff Hatfield Memorial Airport	United States	-182	-55
46234	small_airport	Furnace Creek Airport	United States	-210	-64
46235	medium_airport	Bar Yehuda Airfield	Israel	-1266	-386

Full list.

To give this some perspective, Mount Everest stands at 8848 meters — just 2000 meters higher than Siachen Glacier AFS Airport, India. In fact, this airport (heliport) would rank just outside the top 100 highest mountains. Sadly, it only serves a military purpose, but all credit to the pilots flying at that elevation! The highest large airport is Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport in Peru at 3310 meters above sea level.

At the other end of the scale, Bar Yehuda Airfield in Israel lies 386 meters below sea level. The English Channel is only 120m deep.

Worlds longest runways

runway length rank	type	name	country	length_ft	length_mt	surface
1	seaplane_base	Pontiac Airpark Water Aerodrome	Canada	120,000	36,576	water
2	seaplane_base	Gunflint Seaplane Base	United States	30,000	9,144	water
3	seaplane_base	Libby Camps Seaplane Base	United States	26,000	7,925	water
4	seaplane_base	Brookville Reservoir Seaplane Base	United States	25,000	7,620	water
5	seaplane_base	Long Lake Seaplane Base	United States	25,000	7,620	water
6	seaplane_base	Conchas Lake Seaplane Base	United States	21,120	6,427	water
7	medium_airport	Qamdo Bangda Airport	China, People’s Republic of	18,045	5,500	concrete
8	seaplane_base	Goddard Seadrome Seaplane Base	United States	17,000	5,182	water
9	medium_airport	Ulyanovsk East Airport	Russia	16,404	5,000	concrete
10	medium_airport	Pierre Van Ryneveld Airport	South Africa	16,076	4,900	asphalt

Full list.

No that’s not a typo, Pontiac Airpark Water Aerodrome has a runway that’s 36.5 km long (it is water runway for seaplanes). The longest traditional runway is at Qamdo Bangda Airport in China at 5.5km. The runway needs to be so long because of the elevation of the airport (4333m). When the air is thinner (at altitude) it takes longer for a plane to take-off and land.

The runway at Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport in Saba (in the Caribbean) runs a mere 396m, making it the world’s shortest commercial runways (excluding heliports).

Improvements

I would be very interested in analysing how much traffic some of the runways with notable characteristics receive and any associated accident information, especially those with a high elevation.

tl;dr

The United States has 21.4k airports. That’s almost 18k more than any other country.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

Concorde Would Still Beat Hyperloop

High-speed trains now compete with airlines for short-haul routes.

The fastest high-speed train in operation is limited by a maximum speed of 431 km/h, although trains have reached speeds of 603 km/h in testing.

Hyperloop is a proposed new mode of passenger and freight transportation that propels a pod-like vehicle through a near-vacuum tube at airline speeds. Top speeds of 1200 km/h have been touted. To put that in perspective a Boeing 777-200-LR, one of the fastest commercial jets in operation has a maximum operation speed of 1037 km/h.

What could a world with interconnected Hyperloop routes look like?

Methodology

Given Hyperloop is still in development phase, with some limited testing completed, much of this post takes into account assumptions about what is possible (speeds, geography, engineering limitations etc).

Many of the routes I’ve considered are already in operation — served either by plane or train. Distances for these routes via Hyperloop are very rough given I have not considered geography in any detail. That said, because of the physics involved Hyperloop needs a very straight track.

The aim of this post is to provide a basic overview of what could be made possible with Hyperloop.

Analysis

Maximum operating speeds

Download chart.

The fastest of each mode of transport currently in operation are considered: Hyperloop, Boeing 777-200LR (plane), Shanghai Maglev (train).

Hyperloop is most similar to the existing train networks. The difference between current high-speed trains and Hyperloop is massive (1200 km/h vs. 431 km/h — almost 3 times faster.).

Average Speeds for Popular Air / Rail Routes

Download chart.

For the above 5 routes, all of which show actual times for plane and train journeys, the train is always the slowest (almost twice as slow as a plane for most routes).

Travelling by plane would be the second quickest option, with Hyperloop coming a clear first for all routes (in some cases Hyperloop is almost 4 times quicker on some routes — Paris to Lyon, and twice as quick as taking the plane on others).

It is important to note these figures only consider time spent moving, excluding check-in time, etc.

There are a number of cities currently considering implementing Hyperloop. LA to San Francisco, Dubai to Abu Dhabi, Helsinki to Stockholm, etc. Most of these routes are well below 1000km, as are the routes considered above with the exception of Beijing to Shanghai at just over 1000km apart. At an estimated $19.1 million USD per kilometre, cost is the biggest inhibiting factor to a longer Hyperloop routes at present.

Did you know? It will cost an estimated $2.65 billion USD ($19.1MM USD x 139km) to build a Hyperloop route between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Hyperloop potential

Concorde once circumnavigated the globe in 32 hours 49 minutes and 3 seconds, starting and ending its journey in New York, via Toulouse, Dubai, Bangkok, Guam, Honolulu, Acapulco, to refuel and then back to New York JFK (a total of 36,787.6 km).

Assuming Hyperloop took the same journey at its average estimated speed of 970 km/h (which unlike a plane would not need to account for refuelling time), it would take almost 38 hours (36787.6 km/970 km/h). That’s 5 hours slower than Concorde.

Full map.

The circumference of Earth at the equator is about 24,874 miles (40,030 km), but from pole-to-pole — the meridional circumference — Earth is only 24,860 miles (40,008 km) around. This shape, caused by the flattening at the poles, is called an oblate spheroid. A “true” round-the-world journey circling the equator would take over 41.3 hours (40030 km /970 km/h) at a cost to build of $764.6 billion USD (40030 km * $19.1 million USD per km).

Improvements

As discussed, many of these calculations are very rough. When Hyperloop gets closer to a production version where better estimates are available the calculations used can be improved.

tl;dr

Concorde once circumnavigated the globe in 32 hours 49 minutes and 3 seconds, the same route on Hyperloop would take almost 38 hours.

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.

1 Litre of Beer Costs Just 1 USD in Slovakia

Economists use a range of goods to gauge consumer prices in different countries around the world.

Beer is one consumable that can be used for such purposes, although not often omitted.

I believe this is because unlike a bottle of Coca-Cola, the local varieties of beer can result in significant price differences. Which left me wondering; where can you visit to find the cheapest beer?

Methodology

I used GoEuro’s Beer Price Index (2015 and 2016) for beer costs around the world. This index includes both supermarket and bar costs for a 33cl beer. GoEuro’s data also calculates a mean average beer price using the calculation (supermarket cost + bar cost) / 2.

Results

Cost of beer around the world 2016

Download chart.

A 33cl beer will cost you anywhere between $1.14 and $6.59, on average. Lausanne, Switzerland is the most expensive where a beer at a bar will cost you $12.20. That’s over 6 times more expensive than the cheapest city for a beer at a bar, Kiev ($1.82).

Cheapest beers 2016

Interactive map.

Overall rank (overall ave)	City	Country	Average Price for 33cl Beer (Supermarket) in USD	Average Price for 33cl Beer (Bar) in USD	Overall Average Price in USD	Bar – supermarket diff	Bar – supermarket diff pc
1	Bratislava	Slovakia	0.35	1.93	1.14	1.58	451.43%
2	Kiev	Ukraine	0.47	1.82	1.15	1.35	287.23%
3	Cape Town	South Africa	0.46	2.12	1.29	1.66	360.87%
4	Krakow	Poland	0.57	2.02	1.30	1.45	254.39%
5	Mexico City	Mexico	0.46	2.48	1.47	2.02	439.13%
6	Belgrade	Serbia	0.30	2.73	1.52	2.43	810.00%
7	Cairo	Egypt	0.69	2.61	1.65	1.92	278.26%
8	Warsaw	Poland	0.60	2.79	1.70	2.19	365.00%
8	Ljubljana	Slovenia	0.75	2.64	1.70	1.89	252.00%
10	Budapest	Hungary	0.28	3.13	1.71	2.85	1017.86%

Full list.

Most of the cities in the top 10 (7) are all found in Eastern Europe. In Bratislava, Slovakia a 33cl beer can be bought for $0.35. At a bar in Bratislava the same beer might cost you $1.58 — a 451% increase! In Budapest the difference between supermarket ($0.28) and bar ($3.13) is 1018% (Paris is the worst — a 1270% increase).

Year-on-year beer price changes

Download chart.

Price change rank	City	Country	Overall Average Price % Change 15/16
1	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	-43.27%
2	Geneva	Switzerland	-42.80%
3	Munich	Germany	-42.05%
4	Cape Town	South Africa	-39.72%
5	Bucharest	Romania	-37.81%
6	Ljubljana	Slovenia	-37.34%
7	Tel Aviv	Israel	-37.10%
8	Dublin	Ireland	-34.32%
9	San Francisco	United States	-34.01%
10	Barcelona	Spain	-33.90%

Full list.

GoEuro’s price index records beer prices falling in 63 of 64 cities between 2015 and 2016! Only Malaga in Spain saw beer prices increase, by 23% — sorry packaged holiday makers.

The fall in beer prices was actually fairly significant with an average price decrease of 24%. The top 10 cities ranked by falling beer price all saw price decreases of over 30%. In Rio De Janeiro, Geneva, and Munich average beer prices fell by over 40%! Oktoberfest is looking cheap in 2017!

Beer consumption 2016

Interactive map.

Did you know? Out of the 70 countries considered in GoEuro’s Beer Price Index, the top beer consumers in 2016 were: 1) Czech Republic (144 litres person / year), 2) Poland (127), 3) Serbia (119).

Biggest spenders on beer 2016

Download chart.

Av spend rank	City	Country	Av. Annual Consumption Per Capita (litres)	Av. annual spend per capita (Supermarket only)	Av. annual spend per capita (Bar only)	Av. annual spend per capita (average)
1	Lausanne	Switzerland	56	166.30	2,070.30	1,118.30
2	Helsinki	Finland	105	381.82	1,753.18	1,067.50
3	Sydney	Australia	99	540.00	1,398.00	969.00
4	New York	United States	85	265.30	1,645.91	955.61
5	Miami	United States	85	182.88	1,602.12	892.50
6	Toronto	Canada	116	376.12	1,395.52	885.82
7	Prague	Czech Republic	144	318.55	1,444.36	881.45
8	Venice	Italy	106	212.00	1,532.18	872.09
9	Moscow	Russia	106	395.09	1,323.39	859.24
10	Frankfurt	Germany	107	220.48	1,420.18	820.33

Full list.

Whilst Czech Republic, Poland, and Serbia have the highest beer consumption per capita, the relatively cheap price of beer means that they don’t spend as much ($881 per year, $652 and $546 respectively).

Unsurprisingly Lausanne, Switzerland – where a beer at a bar can cost you more than $12 – comes out top for most spent per person on beer each year at $1,118 (even though consumption is relatively low at only 56 litres p/person p/year).

Improvements

GoEuros dataset has aggregated beer prices. Having access to the raw dataset with prices by brand would be particularly useful in comparing like-for-like differences in prices around the world.

tl;dr

33cl of beer is cheapest in Bratislava, Slovakia at an average cost of $1.14 ($0.35 in a supermarket or $1.93 in a bar).

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

There Is Almost 2 Trillion USD of Planes in Our Skies

$1,911,494,699,999 USD to be exact.

I don’t need to tell you jet planes are expensive. Very expensive. Spoiler alert: you (probably) can’t afford one.

That said, commercial airliners are abundant as a quick look on Flightradar24 will confirm.

At hundreds-of-millions a piece; what is the value of the current fleet of commercial airliners in the sky?

Methodology

I used the average cost of a commercial jet model as supplied by the manufacturers who dominate the commercial market, Airbus and Boeing.

Fleet data was obtained from AirFleets for the SkyTrax top 100 airlines (2015).

Total price values were calculated using average cost of model and most popular model variation in operation. For example, count of the more popular A350-800 was used over the A350-1000 variant.

Aircraft data (seat numbers) was obtained from Wikipedia.

Analysis

Most expensive planes

Download chart.

Unsurprisingly the massive Airbus A380 is the most expensive commercial airliner. All of the top 10 planes by price are worth more than $300 million USD each.

Most expensive cost per seat

Download chart.

The A380 represents represents a high cost efficiency per seat (rank 15th @ 0.82$ million USD / seat).

The A350-1000, 777-9, and 777-200LR all have per seat values of over $1 million USD (cost / number of seats). This is a rough calculation assuming the maximum number of seats are installed (in many cases this does not happen).

Total value of planes by type

Download chart.

Did you know? The cost of planes for all of SkyTraxs top 100 airlines (new) is $1,911,494,699,999 USD.

The Boeing 777 ($340 million / each), 1214 in operation , have a cumulative new value of $412,274,400,000 USD (412 USD billion).

The cheaper 737s ($110 million / each), of which there are 3471 planes in the sky (25% of all commercial aircraft) (almost 3x the 777), have a total combined value of $381,810,000,000 USD (382 USD billion). Southwest operates 710 737s. Bought new these would cost $78,100,000,000 USD (78 USD billion).

Boeing versus Airbus

Download chart.

Although Airbus offers the most expensive plane for sale (the A380 @ $432 million USD), the new cost of all Boeing planes in the sky is much higher than Airbus.

There are over $1 trillion USD of planes flying from Boeing (one trillion sixty-eight billion seven hundred thirty-one million seven hundred thousand), whilst Airbus has just $800 billion USD (eight hundred forty-two billion seven hundred sixty-three million).

Improvements

All the calculations and variable values (plane cost, seats on aircraft, ticket cost, etc) are nowhere near accurate and should only be taken as a generalisation.

Should true data be obtainable, values for these variables would greatly improve the accuracy of all data and calculations used in this post.

tl;dr

The cost of planes for all of SkyTraxs top 100 airline (new) is $1,911,494,699,999 USD.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

Go to Iran, Be A Millionaire for Just 31 USD

Travelling between countries can be disorientating. Changes in currency values can be a major contributing factor. A bottle of Coca-Cola might be $1 USD in America, but ﷼14,000 IRR in Iran (only $0.43 USD).

Much of this can be solved using a simple currency conversion app on your phone. After a few days you’ll master the mental arithmetic to perform currency conversions instantly in your head.

Thinking about the value of different currencies, I started to wonder; where could I be a millionaire, or even billionaire?

Methodology

I collected worldwide currency values against the USD from XE.com at 14:00 GMT 19/01/2017 for comparison.

Results

Strongest currencies – GBP vs USD

I couldn’t start this post without mentioning Brexit. Specifically the negative impact it has had on my worldwide purchasing power (I get paid in GBP).

Latest data.

And it’s not just Brexit. My trips to the US are 80% more expensive when compared to 2007, before the housing crisis. As of writing this, 1 USD = 0.8 GBP. Either way, I’m a millionaire in neither currency.

Strongest currencies vs USD

The GBP is one of the strongest currencies against the USD at the moment,

Value rank vs USD	US Dollar	1 USD feb 192017	1 USD inverse feb 192017	1000000 USD feb 192017	1000000 USD inverse feb 19 2017
1	Kuwaiti Dinar	0.305627	3.271965	305627	3271965
2	Bahraini Dinar	0.377039	2.652243	377039	2652243
3	Omani Rial	0.385253	2.595695	385253	2595695
4	Latvian Lat	0.661973	1.510636	661973	1510636
5	British Pound	0.805704	1.24115	805704	1241150
6	Euro	0.941908	1.061675	941908	1061675

Full table.

You probably won’t be a USD millionaire in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Latvia, or the Euro-zone countries either. In Kuwait 1 million USD is worth around 306K Kuwaiti Dinar. You’d need 3.27 million USD to be a Kuwaiti Dinar millionaire. These are the only 6 major currencies that are currently stronger than the USD.

Weakest Currencies – IRR vs USD

Latest data.

The Iranian Rial is currently the weakest currency against the USD. The currency has an interesting story. The Iranian Rial was devalued in July 2013 to half its previous value as the government reduced subsidisation of the exchange rate against the dollar. Recently, in December 2016, the Iranian government announced the country’s currency will be changed from the rial to the commonly used Toman. As of writing this decision still needs Parliament’s approval.

1 USD will buy you 32420 IRR. 31 USD will buy you 1 million USD. 1 million USD will buy thirty-two billion four hundred twenty million IRR!

Weakest currencies vs USD

Value rank vs USD	US Dollar	1 USD feb 192017	1 USD inverse feb 192017	1000000 USD feb 192017	1000000 USD inverse feb 19 2017
51	Chilean Peso	644.1	0.001553	644100000	1553
52	South Korean Won	1150.45	0.000869	1150450000	869
53	Colombian Peso	2886.5	0.000346	2886500000	346
54	Indonesian Rupiah	13341.1	0.000075	13341100000	75
55	Iranian Rial	32420	0.000031	32420000000	31

Full table.

The Iranian Rial is by far the weakest currency versus the USD. The Indonesian Rupiah comes out second worst with an exchange rate of 1 USD = 13300 IDR. 75 USD would buy you millionaire status in Indonesia.

Improvements

I have completely ignored purchasing power of a currency. As discussed a bottle of Coke in Iran will cost you 14,000 IRR — it wouldn’t be hard to blow 1 million in a single day.

tl;dr

Go to Iran with 31 USD, become a IRR millionaire.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

Burn 12000 Calories A Week Skiing

Skiing is the greatest winter sport. End of discussion.

Enjoying the clean, fresh air whilst rushing down the side of the mountain is exhilarating. Who said exercise was boring?

Skiing 6 hours a day can make you very tired, and very hungry.

Which left me questioning; just how much food do you need to eat to replenish the calories burnt skiing?

Methodology

Using GPS data collected from a recent 6 day ski holiday I was able to obtain the daily distances skied and then best guess my exertion level.

I was then able to use this data with standard exercise / calorie information available on CalorieLab to estimate how many calories I used up each day.

Analysis

Calorie expenditure

Download chart.

The data was collected using the Ski Tracks app (Android & iOS). Ski time only includes time spent descending. Ski exertion is best guess (40% time = light, 50% t = moderate, 10% t = vigorous).

According to NHS guidance the average male needs 2500 kCal per day to maintain their weight, or for the sake of this analysis have a kCal neutral balance. For simplicity, lets assume my daily energy requirements are 2500 kCal + energy spent skiing only.

My vital stats used to calculate calorie expenditure on CalorieLab: sex = male, weight = 70kg.

Download chart.

Did you know: A 70kg male can expend almost 3000 kCal moderately skiing for 5 hours (500 * 5.83 kCal p/min).

On Sunday 23rd January 2016, it is estimated I expended the highest number of Kilo Calories (kCal) skiing (1777.4 kCal), with estimated daily kCal expenditure falling slightly with each day — something I put down to fatigue. My average estimated daily kCal burned skiing was about 1676 kCal (8380 kCal week total).

Calorie intake

Food / Drink	Serving Size	kCal
Carlsberg (lager)	470ml (pint)	180
Cheese, Gruyere	10g	122
Red Wine	12.5cl (glass)	85
Domino’s Original Cheese & Tomato Large Classic Crust Pizza	Slice	183
Oatmeal	100g	375
Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Doughnut	Doughnut	222
Morrisons In Store Bakery Artisan Baguette	0.25 baguette	246

Full table.

To put this into perspective, you can see from the NHS Choices Calories Calculator how calorific classic skiing fare is.

A particularly calorific food diary from a skiing companion of mine saw an average intake of over 4000kCal, though I’m not naming anyone. On one day this figure was 4727 kcal! In his very weak defence, using my calorie neutral daily average of 4369 kCal this was only a surplus of 358 kCal (4727 – 4369), or two pints of beers (360 kCal). With a more controlled diet he could maintain a high daily kCal deficit and potentially lose weight.

Effects of altitude

There is not a huge difference in the amount of calories utilised at a higher altitude during exercise even though it may feel as though you are working much harder. The few extra calories burned will be a result of increased breathing to get more oxygen into the body, which means increased work by the rib cage and other muscles involved in ventilation (which are all relatively small).

Returning home

Some would argue the biggest danger is continuing such a diet upon your return home. 4727 kCal is almost twice the daily recommendation of 2500 kCal, a difference of 2227 kCal — one that would quickly start resulting in weight gain.

Improvements

The science behind calorific burn is a confusing area to research due to the many conflicting arguments. Clearly, this is a very inaccurate analysis for the most part. By adding in additional variables to my calculations – like heart rate, temperature, etc – rather than just time would likely produce some very different results.

tl;dr

5 hours of continuous moderate skiing can burn almost 3000 kCal. Or 16 pints of beer (@180 kCal p/pint).

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

Pay Off A Mortgage In Less Than 3 Years As An Airbnb Host

Micro-housing markets around the world change the shape of local communities. Those with skyrocketing costs, London or San Francisco for example, are starting to see an exodus of young people. Whilst Detroit, with comparatively low housing costs, is seeing an influx of younger people.

In San Francisco it will cost you on average $199 USD per night (April 2016) to rent a 1 bedroomed apartment in the city using Airbnb. If you’re spending this much a night on accommodation you quickly start doing some back-of-napkin maths. At 100% occupancy that’s a gross rental income of $6169. Even at 50% occupancy that’s still well over $3000 USD per month.

Now, anyone who lives in San Francisco will tell you long-term rent is expensive too. The average traditional rental price for a 1 bedroomed property is $2850 USD according to Zillow. In this case subletting on Airbnb at 50% occupancy would leave a gross profit of $150 USD (before taxes, utilities, etc are factored in). If you owned the property, the profit (even with a mortgage) would likely be much greater.

But where are hosts making the most money?

Methodology

Using Airdna data I examined the average nightly cost of “Entire place” for studio, one, and two bedroomed rentals on Airbnb (house and apartment) during the month of April 2016 for 30 of the largest metro areas in the United States. My calculations factor in the Airbnb service fee, however ignore utility costs (and other associated fees) to the hosts (thus, returns should be considered as gross).

Occupancy rates for Airbnb rentals are harder to find and vary significantly as a result of a number of factors, namely time and location. However, after researching a number of sources online I came up with average occupancy figures of between 50% – 75%, like this Quora answer for NYC and this SmartAsset blog post, as a base estimate.

I then turned to Zillow to obtain both average April 2016 rental values and average April 2016 property values for the same 30 metro areas.

Analysis

Buy-to-Airbnb (1 bedroom)

Property prices in some cities have increased wildly over the last few years. Take San Francisco, CA, a new one bedroomed home will set you back over $500K USD. In Cleveland, OH you could buy 8 homes with that money with some left over (average 1 bedroomed cost = $63.3K USD).

Highest ROI Cities

1 BR purchase price rank (April 2016)	1BR ROI Rank (April 2016)	1BR Actual Earnings Rank (April 2016)	RegionName	Buy 1 BR ROI Yr @ 50% occ (April 2016)	Buy 1 BR ROI Yr @ 75% occ (April 2016)
30	1	20	Cleveland, OH	22.72%	35.65%
27	2	15	Tampa, FL	21.52%	33.83%
26	3	23	Pittsburgh, PA	19.50%	31.19%
29	4	26	San Antonio, TX	18.74%	29.71%
28	5	28	Orlando, FL	18.04%	28.68%
24	6	21	Cincinnati, OH	17.88%	28.17%
22	7	10	Houston, TX	17.78%	27.87%
18	8	6	Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL	16.48%	25.75%
21	9	17	Las Vegas, NV	16.40%	26.14%
23	10	27	St. Louis, MO	14.95%	23.79%

Full list.

Cleveland, OH, the cheapest city to buy a 1 bedroomed place on our list ($63.3K USD) gives a 26% yearly return at 50% occupancy. At 75% this increases to 36% — in 3 years the Airbnb revenues would exceed the purchase price of the property!

In comparison, San Francisco, CA, the most expensive place to by a property, offers average returns of around 6% – 9% yearly to homeowners renting property using Airbnb.

Download chart.

All owners hosting on Airbnb at 50% occupancy will make a gross profit. The best ROI for 1 bedroomed places is generally found in the cities with lower property values. The spread of returns at 75% occupancy is between 9% and 36% yearly. At 50% occupancy this drops to 5% and 22%.

Buy-to-Airbnb (2 bedroom)

Highest ROI Cities

2 BR purchase price rank (April 2016)	2BR ROI Rank (April 2016)	2BR Actual Earnings Rank (April 2016)	RegionName	Buy 2 BR ROI Yr @ 50% occ (April 2016)	Buy 2 BR ROI Yr @ 75% occ (April 2016)
30	1	21	San Antonio, TX	30.62%	47.53%
22	2	23	Orlando, FL	29.72%	46.21%
20	3	11	Detroit, MI	29.45%	46.77%
27	4	15	Cincinnati, OH	27.78%	43.01%
16	5	7	Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL	27.65%	42.51%
21	6	25	Tampa, FL	26.92%	41.92%
28	7	26	Pittsburgh, PA	25.81%	40.64%
24	8	17	Houston, TX	23.81%	36.92%
29	9	29	Cleveland, OH	23.42%	36.70%
17	10	18	Las Vegas, NV	23.25%	36.42%

Full list.

Detroit, a city that has been in decline over the past few decades, is beginning to see somewhat of a resurgence. Whilst the city is not the cheapest to purchase a 2 bedroomed property (ranked 20/30), it ranks high for actual Airbnb dollar earning (11/30) and offers the third highest yearly ROI at 30% and 46% at 50% and 75% occupancy respectively. I don’t have the data to back up wether these occupancy statistics are easily realised, but 50% occupancy seems relatively low to me (for an average property in a big city, competition not considered).

Download chart.

And such high returns are not unique. The median return for 2 bedroomed places at 75% occupancy is over 30% — that equates to 15 properties out of 30 returning more than 30% of their value each year.

Buy-to-Airbnb (summary)

Download chart.

You can see the gross return on 1 bedroomed properties in most cities is roughly 10% less than 2 bedroomed properties.

Rent-to-Airbnb (1BR)

Highest ROI Cities

1BR rent rank	1BR actual earning rank	1BR ROI rank	Region Name	Rent 1 BR ROI Yr @ 50% occ USD	Rent 1 BR ROI Yr @ 75% occ USD
30	21	1	Cincinnati, OH	99.21%	198.81%
27	21	2	Cleveland, OH	72.51%	158.77%
28	27	3	St. Louis, MO	66.93%	150.39%
24	13	4	Las Vegas, NV	66.80%	150.20%
25	20	5	Pittsburgh, PA	59.32%	138.98%
29	30	6	Detroit, MI	51.59%	127.39%
22	16	7	Tampa, FL	51.30%	126.96%
26	26	8	San Antonio, TX	49.30%	123.95%
3	1	9	Boston, MA	45.67%	118.51%
23	25	10	Phoenix, AZ	40.91%	111.36%

Full list.

Your first observation is that ROI will be much higher for renters (but remember we are only considering rent for a year which is significantly less than the cost of buying a property).

Returns of almost 200% can are obtainable if renters are able to sub-let their 1 bedroomed home for 75% of the year. The top ten cities above all have ROI greater than 100%.

1BR rent rank	1BR actual earning rank	1BR ROI rank	Region Name	Rent 1 BR ROI Yr @ 50% occ USD	Rent 1 BR ROI Yr @ 75% occ USD
8	9	27	Seattle, WA	-3.54%	44.69%
5	7	28	Washington, DC	-5.04%	42.43%
4	4	29	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA	-6.42%	40.36%
1	2	30	San Francisco, CA	-10.19%	34.71%

Full list.

Unlike buying, I have calculated that it is likely you could lose money subletting your home (based on rent paid for the year). In 4 cities, subletting with less than 50% occupancy yields returns less than total rent paid. That means if you sublet on Airbnb in San Francisco and your occupancy rate is 50% for the month, you will have to cover 10.19% of the rent yourself — essentially you pay 10% of total rent to stay in the home 50% of the time. Not a bad deal.

Download chart.

At 75% occupancy renters in all cities subletting their home will receive positive returns with a huge spread returns of between 35% and 200%.

Rent-to-Airbnb (2BR)

Highest ROI Cities

2BR rent rank	2BR actual earning rank	2BR ROI rank	RegionName	Rent 2 BR ROI Yr @ 50% occ USD	Rent 2 BR ROI Yr @ 75% occ USD
28	15	1	Cincinnati, OH	122.09%	233.14%
25	9	2	Detroit, MI	114.77%	222.16%
26	17	3	Las Vegas, NV	99.41%	199.12%
29	27	4	St. Louis, MO	86.08%	179.12%
4	1	5	Boston, MA	85.27%	177.91%
24	21	6	San Antonio, TX	82.46%	173.70%
15	8	7	Baltimore, MD	73.43%	160.14%
19	14	8	Charlotte, NC	66.95%	150.42%
22	21	9	Phoenix, AZ	66.85%	150.27%
23	25	10	Pittsburgh, PA	61.67%	142.50%

Full list.

As was the case for property owners, sub-letters of 2 bedroomed homes get better returns when compared with 1 bedroomed homes — in Detroit returns are 55% higher. All cities yield positive returns at both 50% and 75% occupancy for 2 bedroomed homes.

Again Cincinnati offer sub-letters the best returns for 2 bedroomed places, as was true for 1 bedroomed homes.

Download chart.

Most returns are between the 60% – 180% range at 75% occupancy.

Rent-to-Airbnb (summary)

Download chart.

Sub-letters see a larger difference in returns on property sizes. 2 bedroomed homes offer much better returns than 1 bedroomed homes — at 75% occupancy returns for 2 bedroomed places are almost 40% higher.

Improvements

I didn’t consider utilities — a major overhead for hosts. I have obtained numbers on Numbeo which puts average rents in these cities at about $2360 yearly, a range of between $1938 USD (San Diego) – $3936 USD (Detroit).

That said, my calculation did not consider cleaning fees, which can amount to $100’s per month, and thus potentially offsetting utility costs incurred.

For a more accurate comparison, both of these factors should be considered.

tl;dr

Airbnb hosts renting 2 bedroomed homes make more money than 1 bedroomed homes. In many cases hosts subletting can pay their yearly rent twice over from Airbnb yields. Likewise many homeowners in the cities analysed could make the purchase price of their home in only a few years through Airbnb guests.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

Size Matters: How Airline Size Affects Customer Satisfaction

When I think of many large corporations I think of commodity products rather than quality. Most airlines these days are large corporations – or part of a group of airlines – with thousands of staff around the world.

As a measure of size, it is the older carriers that have the largest fleets of aircraft (1. American, 2. Delta, 3. United).

Does the size of an airline affect brand image, or more importantly, passenger satisfaction?

Methodology

Skytrax is arguably the most well know measure of airline rankings. Released every year since 2012, I am using the latest 2016 version. In their own words the Skytrax ranking is a: “Quality analysis across hundreds of categories for both airline product and service delivery, covering the Onboard and home-base Airport environments.”

Similarly Airhelp produces their own AirHelp Score that ranks airlines on three measures: quality and service, on-time performance, and the ease of making a claim (for delayed flights, etc).

Using data from Airfleets (April 2016) I was able to measure an airline by size of its fleet. My assumption is that airlines with larger fleets will have the more staff.

I did consider using market capitalisation as a measure of size but due to differences in company dynamics (airline groups, traded on different markets / volumes, etc) I decided against doing so.

Results

Airlines with most aircraft

Download chart.

The top 4 airlines by fleet size are all based in the US. They are also considerably larger than the next biggest airline, China Southern (who operate 200 fewer planes).

Airline	Fleet Size Rank (04/16)	Skytrax rank 2016	AirHelp Score rank (Autumn 16)
American Airlines	1	77	28
Delta Air Lines	2	35	31
United Airlines	3	68	16
Southwest Airlines	4	66	#N/A
China Southern Airlines	5	32	66
China Eastern Airlines	6	79	74
Air China	7	87	77
Turkish Airlines	8	7	60
Lufthansa	8	10	11
British Airways	10	26	12

Full list.

Only one of the top 10 airlines by fleet size is in the Skytrax top 10, Turkish (7th). None of the 10 airlines with the largest fleets make the AirHelp Score top 10.

Download chart.

The top 10 airlines by fleet size are considerably larger than the competition. Most airlines (83/100) operate less than 200 planes, 53 operate fewer than 100.

Skytrax 2016 Top 10

Download chart.

Download the full Skytrax Top 100 ranking.

Qatar has held either the 1st or 2nd spot in the Skytrax ranking since 2012 (currently ranked 2nd). Emirates, currently ranked 1st, has seen a more turbulent rise to the top (placed 8th in 2012, 4th in 2014, and 5th in 2015).

Airline	Fleet Size Rank (04/16)	Skytrax rank 2016	AirHelp Score rank (Autumn 16)
Emirates	11	1	12
Qatar Airways	18	2	1
Singapore Airlines	40	3	4
Cathay Pacific Airways	31	4	7
ANA All Nippon Airways	16	5	#N/A
Etihad Airways	34	6	#N/A
Turkish Airlines	8	7	60
EVA Air	57	8	#N/A
Qantas Airways	38	9	#N/A
Lufthansa	8	10	11

Full list.

5 of the top 10 Skytrax ranked airlines are ranked 30th and below for fleet size. This suggests smaller airlines offer better service. Conversely, for the airlines where an AirHelp Score exists many rank fairly highly. The anomaly being Turkish Airlines who have the 6th largest fleet size, a Skytrax rank of 7th, but a very poor AirHelp Score ranked 60th.

AirHelp Score Autumn 2016 Top 10

Download chart.

Download the full AirHelp Score ranking.

Qatar ranks perfectly in 1st for all periods of the AirHelp Score ranking, beating its Skytrax rankings. Virgin Atlantic has seen the best improvement of AirHelp Score rank moving from 38th – 6th position in just one year!

Airline	Fleet Size Rank (04/16)	Skytrax rank 2016	AirHelp Score rank (Autumn 16)
Qatar Airways	18	2	1
Austrian	54	19	2
Air Dolomiti	#N/A	#N/A	2
Singapore Airlines	40	3	4
KLM	23	24	5
Virgin Atlantic	76	28	6
Cathay Pacific Airways	31	4	7
Air Canada	15	31	7
Air Baltic	#N/A	#N/A	7
Finnair	70	27	10

Full list.

Again, most of the airlines in the AirHelp Score top 10 are smaller airlines (8 are ranked 30th and below by fleet size). That said, many of these airlines are brand names in the industry.

Improvements

Skytrax and Airhelp rankings are good baselines to understand customer satisfaction, however, only give and aggregated of customer satisfaction. Delays, number of flights, food quality are raw metrics that will give a better view of where airlines perform best.

tl;dr

Larger airlines (by fleet size) tend to offer worse service than their smaller counterparts.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

Airlines Are Undercharging You For Fuel

Taxes, duty, surcharges… passenger facility charges.

Airline tickets are a lot more than just a standard fare. For most consumers the fare breakdown is a non-issue because the total fare is shown clearly at time of purchase (you may never even see the fare breakdown).

Some including taxes imposed by governments are fixed. Even if the airline thinks they’re unreasonable they still have to pay.

Items like Fuel Surcharge are less defined as they are set by individual airlines; but how closely do they correlate to actual fuel cost for the journey?

Methodology

I recently flew from London to Qatar and was charged a Fuel Surcharge.

Using data about plane efficiency found on Wikipedia and fuel costs from IATA (Oct 2016 @ 1.42 USD / gal) I was able to estimate the amount of fuel used for the journey, the estimated total cost of fuel, and how it differed from the Fuel Surcharge charged.

Because airlines rarely share actual passenger numbers my calculations assume passenger load factor (percentage of seat capacity utilised) = 100% (even though aircraft rarely operate at 100% capacity). For example, the PLF for British Airways in 2014 was about 81% (although some of their popular routes operate at 99%!).

It is also worth noting, thousands of unique factors affect actual fuel economy: payload weight, weather conditions, delays, required additional fuel for safety regulations, etc that I could not account for.

Results

Fuel Surcharges

Fuel Surcharges are often coded as YQ or YR on tickets. Fuel surcharges were introduced in the early to mid-2000s when the price of oil soared.

Many people incorrectly confuse the Fuel Surcharge as the actual fuel cost.

“A fuel surcharge is a way of adjusting the amount paid to move freight [persons] by taking into account significant variation in fuel prices, compared to historical levels. It is a method for sharing or transferring risk.”
–Supply Chain 24/7

A Fuel Surcharge is designed to cover the varying fuel cost of flying you to your destination, but it is not the actual fuel cost.

If you think about this more deeply, charging an actual fuel cost would be impossible due to fluctuations in fuel price paid by the airline. Aircraft fuel has fallen by over 60% in the last two years alone. But are airlines passing these savings onto consumers?

Some sources claim Fuel Surcharges are “not for fuel any more“, suggesting they account for additional costs and operating margins. Other sources also claim airline Fuel Surcharges have no direct relationship to fuel cost.

Admission: This makes it almost impossible to calculate wether airlines are overcharging for fuel (because we don’t know what parts of the fare breakdown account for it). Though bear with me. Lets hypothesises that Fuel Surcharge has some relationship to fuel cost.

Airline Opex

Download chart.

In 2008 fuel accounted for the third largest share of airline operating expenses at 32.3% for all major airlines — in 2001 it was only 13.6%! More recent data would suggest fuel now accounts for 27.6% of an airlines operating expenditure.

Actual Fuel Cost

My flights:

Route	Aircraft	Miles
LHR – DOH	Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner	3,259
DOH – BKK	Airbus A380-800	3,288
BKK – DOH	Airbus A380-800	3,288
DOH – BKK	Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner	3,259

Full table.

I was charged $230.68 USD in Fuel Surcharges for the round-trip, or $115.34 USD one-way (the total for the ticket was $671 USD, fuel surcharge is 29% of total cost).

To obtain the additional data required to estimate actual fuel costs I used:

Wikipedia: average fuel efficiency for both these aircrafts, and many more.
IATA: jet fuel costs.

Did you know: The Airbus A380’s fuel tank has a capacity of 320,000 litres (84,500 US Gal) of jet fuel — most of which is stored in the wings! In comparison, my old car had a 50L (13 US Gal) tank.

The estimated actual fuel costs for my journey:

	US Gal Needed p/Pax	US Gal Needed Total
Boeing 787-8 (one-way)	37.03	8,814.11
Airbus A380 (one-way)	45.67	23,975.00
One-way	82.70	32,789.11
Round-trip	165.40	65,578.23

Fuel Hedging

Fuel surcharges introduced when oil prices were high have remained in place because most airlines hedged their fuel purchases.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reckons the final hedges which locked airlines into higher than market oil prices will unwind by mid-2016, increasing the potential for cheaper airfare towards the end of the year.

Overcharging for fuel

Download chart.

My ticket was booked within 3 weeks of outbound travel (7 weeks of return travel). Given a Fuel Surcharge “takes into account significant variation in fuel prices”, I did expect the estimated actual fuel cost to vary slightly given the current market conditions.

Assuming Fuel Surcharge = fuel cost, calculations based on the current jet fuel price (Oct 2016) ($1.42 / US Gal), I am being undercharged for fuel by $3.04 USD ($230.68 fuel surcharge -$233.72 actual fuel cost).

Remember this assumes a 100% passenger load factor, so it is very likely the airline is receiving less in total in Fuel Surcharges (e.g 80% load factor would equal 20% drop in total Fuel Surcharge). In such a case, it means I am actually being undercharged by an even greater amount.

As discussed, many people believe a Fuel Surcharge != fuel cost. However, it is interesting to note the difference between the two is almost 0. Whilst this is not very solid proof of a correlation, it would definitely indicate one.

So lets stick with the assumption that Fuel Surcharge = fuel cost. If the airline hedged at the 5 Year high in 2011 ($3.27 / US Gal) I would actually be underpaying by a whopping $307.52 USD ($230.68 -$538.20). Assuming the planes are operating at full capacity, that would be a total fuel underpayment for the journey of around $30,000 USD!

To add some balance, assuming the airline purchased fuel at the average price of these two values ($2.35 / US Gal – 2014 prices) I am underpaying $156.10 USD for my fuel surcharge ($230.68 – $386.78).

Improvements

Instead of using fuel surcharge for comparison, I could use reported airline opex figures for fuel expenditure against ticket cost.

tl;dr

Your airline is probably undercharging you for fuel based on current jet fuel prices (latest @ $1.36 – Nov 2016) — assuming fuel surcharge = fuel cost.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.