Estimation question

How many drones would be needed to deliver all of Fedex's packages in the US?

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Multi-step estimation combining volume, drone capacity, and operational constraints.

Estimate FedEx's daily US package volume, assume roughly 15 million packages per day based on its scale relative to known competitors.
Assume what share could realistically go by drone, likely small last-mile lightweight packages, assume 20 percent qualify, about 3 million daily.
Estimate deliveries per drone per day, accounting for battery range, load and unload time, and charging, assume roughly 20 deliveries per drone.
Calculate: 3,000,000 divided by 20 gives roughly 150,000 drones needed.
Sanity check against real-world drone delivery pilots, which operate at far smaller scale, suggesting this is plausible as a full national buildout.
State the estimate as a range, roughly 100,000 to 200,000 drones, given uncertainty in eligibility share and throughput.

Decomposes the problem into volume, eligibility share, and per-drone throughput instead of guessing a single number.
States the eligible-package assumption explicitly, weight and distance limits, a realistic operational constraint often missed.
Accounts for real drone throughput limits, battery and charging, rather than assuming continuous operation.
Grounds the sanity check in real-world drone delivery pilots' current scale.

Assuming 100 percent of packages could go by drone, ignoring weight and range limits.
Skipping the per-drone daily throughput constraint.
Not sanity-checking against real-world drone delivery pilot scale.

Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.