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Market Size the number of Pilots in your home country ?

My answer was off by around a 10x for this question and im really not sure how to structure this

My high-level structure was #flights domestically that are departing/arriving daily / flights per pilot daily

But then I quickly got confused with my numerator (e.g. I was thinking whether this made sense and I'm assuming all passengers in my home country will have pilots of the same nationality - and it took me 5 mins to realize it kind of made sense (?) ). But this gap in conceptual clarity wont be allowed in a real interview

Much appreciated

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Hagen
Coach
am 10. Juni 2025
#1 recommended coach | >95% success rate | 9+ years consulting, interviewing and coaching experience

Hi there,

I would be happy to share my thoughts on your question:

  • First of all, I think your approach is suitable, despite being high-level. I would also advise to start with the total number of commercial flights per year and break it down using average crew per flight, shifts per pilot, and other relevant factors.
  • Moreover, however, please keep in mind that except for Bain in the UK and few smaller consulting firms, most consulting firms have not used standalone market size estimations for a long time. While this does not mean it never happens, this type of case study question is typically not be very meaningful for both the candidate and interviewer, as only a few skills are being tested.

You can find more on this topic here: How to succeed in the final interview round.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare your application files, for your upcoming pre-interview assessments and/or interviews, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Mihir
Coach
am 10. Juni 2025
McKinsey Associate Partner and interviewer | Bulletproof MBB prep

Below is a top-down example for commercial flights only, assuming you have 10-15 mins to do it. You need a few components of your logic tree:

  • [1] flights per day (can either be calculated based on local population and visitors or by airport size)
  • [2] flight hours (make assumptions on length of flight by short, mid, longhaul)
  • [3] pilot shift hours (make assumption on average time per year a pilot can fly based on number of days * hours per day)
  • [4] share of pilots from your home country (assume 50% are actually flying in/out from somewhere else)

Then, you would get the following:

  • [1] * [2] = total number of hours flown in or out of your country
  • (Total number of hours / [3]) * [4] = number of pilots in your home country.

There are other ways to do this too. Hope this helps!

am 10. Juni 2025
#1 Rated McKinsey Coach | Top MBB Coach | Verifiable success rates

Hi there, 

ChatGPT is rather good by now at market sizing, so try the prompt and ask for several ways of solving it. 

From my perspective, the approach that you took is first of all too high-level. Ideally, you always have multiple filters that help you refine your way to the final number. In short, you should break down each element in your approach a bit more, until you reach a point where you can generate assumptions with a higher degree of confidence.

Best,
Cristian

Mariana
Coach
am 14. Juni 2025
Free CV evaluation | xMckinsey | 1.5h session | +200 sessions | Free 20-min introductory call

Hi there,

Adding to what was stated, it is always good to clarify with the interviewer if you should consider other types of flights - private airplanes, helicopters, etc.

Also, although your initial structure makes sense, it would be good to deep dive on it, otherwise you won't be able to actually get to numbers that make sense.

Being 10X out of the real number is not a huge issue if the logic is sound, you probably made an assumption in one or some of the levers that was off. 

Best,

Mari

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