How many airplanes fly everyday in the world?

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How many airplanes fly everyday in the world?

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Avi Grabinsky · Answer 1 · 2020-04-15T09:21:10+0000

Can we assume the question relates to how many plane flights are taking place per day? Yes.

Can we assume only civilian flights and not cargo? yes.

General formula:

(avg-personal-travels-per-person-per-year * #-of-persons * #fligths-per-travel +

average-business-travels-per-person-per-year * #-of-persons * #fligths-per-travel ) / avg_pass_plane / 365

Developed world = 1.5B ppl

assume 5% business travelers = 75M

30% personal travelers = 500M

Developing + under developed = 5.5B ppl

1% business = 55M

5% personal = 275M

Avg-personal-travel-yr = 1/yr

Avg-business-travels-yr = 3/yr

Avg-legs-per-travel = 3

Avg-plane-capacity = 200 ppl

((75M + 55M) * 3 * 3 + (500M + 275M) *1 * 3) = 1.2B + 2.4B = 3.6B

3.6B / 365 ~ 10M

10M / 200 = 50,000 flights per day

Sanity checking:

I recall US flights per day is not far from this number. Assuming US GDP is quarter of the entire world, than we are in the same ball park.

PM Team · Answer 2 · 2019-10-25T21:14:30+0000

Assume Number of countries in world = 200

Developed countries = 50

Developing = 100

Under Developing = 50

Airplane traffic is the total number of planes flying from and arriving on an airport in a city

For Developed Countries:

Assume 20 major cities and 30 not so major cities with 1 airport each in 1 developed country

Traffic per day for major city = 100 airplanes

Traffic per day for not so major city per day = 50 airplanes

Total airplane traffic = ((100*20)+(30*50))*50 = 1,75,000 airplanes

For Developing Countries:

Assume 5 major cities and 15 not so major cities with 1 airport each in 1 developed country

Traffic per day for major city = 60 airplanes

Traffic per day for not so major city per day = 20 airplanes

Total airplane traffic = ((5*60)+(15*20))*100 = 60,000 airplanes

For under-developed countries:

Assume 5 cities with 1 airport each in 1 under-developed country

Traffic per day for the city = 20 airplanes

Total airplane traffic = (5*20*50) = 5,000 airplanes

Total = 1,75,000+60,000+5,000 = 2,40,000 airplanes

Number of airplanes flying = 2,40,000/2 = 1,20,000 airplanes per day

SANITY CHECK

Total number of airplanes flying in 2018 was close to 40 million

40 million/365 = 1,10,000 planes per day.

Thus, our guesstimate is well in range to the number.

RMan · Answer 3 · 2020-03-28T02:00:19+0000

Assumptions:

Considering only Commercial passenger flights. Ignoring Commercial corgo, private, military flights.

Estimation:

No. of countrues in the world: Around 200

Abbreviations in the table:

D-D: Developed country to Developed Country

D-E: Developed to Emerging (& vice versa)

D-U: Developed to underdeveloped (& vice versa)

E-E: Emerging to Emerging

E-U: Emerging to underdeveloped (&vice versa)

U-U: Underdeveloped to Underdeveloped

Types of CountriesNo. of countriesNo. of cities with AirportsAvg. No. of inter city flights per dayTotal No. inter city flights per dayAvg. No of flights between the countries per dayTotal No. of Flights

Developed	20	US (Avg. 3 per state)=150, Others (Avg. 20 per country) = 380 Total: 530	4	4*530C2 ~500000	D-D: 4 D-E: 2 D-U: 2/7 (Assuming: 2 flights per week)	D-D: 420C2~800 D-E: 260C2~3600 D-U: 2/7*160C2~3700
Emerging	40	(Avg. 10 per country): 400	2	2*400C2 ~160000	E-E: 2 E-U: 1/7 (Assuming: 1 flight per week)	E-E: 240C2 ~ 1600 E-U: 1/7180C2 ~1800
Under developed	140	(Avg. 2 per country): 280	1	1*280C2 ~39200	U-U: 1/30 (Assuming: a flight per month)	U-U: 1/30*140C2 ~350
Total				699200		11800

Final estimate:

Around a total of 711000 flights per day across the world.

Possible mistakes:

Over estimation of no. of cities with airports in the developed world.

Amulya Parmar · Answer 4 · 2020-01-06T23:15:07+0000

To estimate the number of the airplanes flying in today's world,

First, I will ask some clarifying questions and catalog factors that I believe will affect an estimate

Next I would design an equation to an estimate the number of airplanes

Last, I would address additional factors that could affect our estimate

If that sounds good to you, I can get started.

Clarifying questions:

1. Airplanes in this case are not considering jets? CORRECT

2. Fly everyday means that airplane must be active everyday or does it mean the avg count of airplanes that fly everyday? THE AVERAGE COUNT

FACTORS THAT WEIGH INTO THE ESTIMATION EQUATION

BUSINESSES

# OF PEOPLE THAT NEED TRANSPORT

INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC TRAVEL

# THE NUMBER OF AIRPORTS

ESTIMATION EQUATION

[# OF COUNTRIES] * [AVG POP PER COUNTRY] * [ % OF EACH COUNTRY POP THAT FLY IN UNITS PEOPLE] * [ AVG NUMBER OF FLIGHTS PER PERSON] / 365 / ( [ AVG SIZE OF AN AIRPLANE] * [AVG OCCUPANCY OF AN AIRPLANE] )

200 COUNTRIES * 7 billion / 200 200 people on the avg airplane

We can bucket countries into

MORE DEVELOPED & FREELY-FLOWING populations : 50 countries * 40% of pop / country flies each year * 4 trips per person per yr

150 LESS DEVELOPED & LESS FREELY FLOWING pop: 150 countries * 10% of pop / country flies each year* 2 trips per person per yr

110 / 200 = AVG Percent fo the world is 55% of the world flies every year

and about 55% .0015 of the world's population are in a plane each day

7 billion * .0015 = 40 million people in the air everyday

40 * 5 = avg plane seats 200 people

so if we divide 40 million by 200 people than we get an average of 200, 000 airplanes in the air everyday.