Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas

Introduction:

Dallas and Houston are both large, cosmopolitan cities with relatively low population densities outside of the central business districts, when compared to other American cities of similar population size. Both cities cater to many business travelers which tend to visit the central business district of each city during their trip. Both cities have a major international airport, as well as a smaller regional airport, that serve most of the commercial air traffic to each city.

Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas is a new concept in terminal food delivery service that delivers a made to order, piping hot and delicious quesadilla to hungry travelers, in a convenient hand-held & travel-friendly container. To maximize convenience, the business want to focus on quesadillas delivered to the customer on their way to or from the gate, inside of the TSA clean zone, however can deliver anywhere withing their 5000 meter delivery radius. Since there are large upstart costs as well as a price premium to the end customer over a non-airlifted quesadilla, the startup is looking to partner with air carriers to offer the service as an exclusive benefit to their elite business travelers, who they feel are the market segment most likely to be converted into repeat customers. Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas would like to maximize the number of potential customers by selecting either Dallas or Houston based on an analysis of restaurants that already exist either within the airport, or outside of the airport, but within the 5000 meter delivery radius.

Data and Methodology:

Open source Python tools, such as Pandas and Numpy, will be used to conduct descriptive analysis, as well as to create visualizations. Data cleaning, web scraping and calls to APIs will also be used to capture data as needed. The Foursquare API will be used to gather data about the different restaurants in and around both airports for each city, segmenting them by venue type of Mexican, and comparing to other types of restaurant venues. We will then compare this data with passenger volumes for each airport and provide a recommendation of which city to offer services in.

Results

From the foursquare data, we found that for Dallas Fort Worth Airport (DFW), there were 28 restaurants and 17 Mexican restaurants. We found that for Dallas Love Field (DAL), there were 50 restaurants and 40 Mexican restaurants. We found that for Houston George Bush Airport (IAH), there were 10 restaurants and 13 Mexican restaurants. We found that for Houston Hobby Airport (HOU), there were 16 restaurants and 2 Mexican restaurants. We learned the passenger volumes by enplanements for each airport being studied:

Rank	RO	ST	Locid	City	Airport Name	S/L	Hub	CY 18 Enplanements	CY 17 Enplanements	% Change
4	SW	TX	DFW	Fort Worth	Dallas-Fort Worth International	P	L	32821799	31816933	0.0316
14	SW	TX	IAH	Houston	George Bush Intercontinental/Houston	P	L	21157398	19603731	0.0793
32	SW	TX	DAL	Dallas	Dallas Love Field	P	M	8011221	7593361	0.055
35	SW	TX	HOU	Houston	William P Hobby	P	M	7053886	6538976	0.0787

Then, we mapped the proximity to the airport for each within 5000 Meters:

Dallas Fort Worth Airport (DFW):

All Restaurants:

Mexican Restaurants:

Dallas Love Field (DAL):

All Restaurants:

Mexican Restaurants:

Houston George Bush Airport (IAH):

All Restaurants:

Mexican Restaurants:

Houston Hobby Airport (HOU):

All Restaurants:

Mexican Restaurants:

Discussion

We calculate the ratio of passenger volume to venue type for each airport in order to determine which market has the most opportunity for current and future growth. For DFW, there are 1,172,207 potential customers per restaurant in Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas delivery range, and 1,930,694 potential customers per Mexican restaurant. For DAL, there are 160,224 potential customers per restaurant in Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas delivery range, and 200,280 potential customers per Mexican restaurant. For IAH, there are 2,115,739 of potential customers per restaurant in Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas delivery range, and 1,627,492 potential customers per Mexican restaurant. For HOU, there are 440,867 potential customers per restaurant in Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas delivery range, and 3,526,943 potential customers per Mexican restaurant. Additionally, both Houston area airports show more growth YOY from 2017 to 2018 than the airports in Dallas.

Conclusion

Based on an analysis of the number of all restaurants, as well as Mexican restaurants against passenger volumes for airports located in Houston and Dallas, Houston would be a better choice for launching Quick Quadcopter Quesadillas. This is because the market has fewer of both Mexican restaurants and all restaurants in relative to its passenger volumes, as well as showed a greater percent growth of passenger volumes YOY than airports in the DFW area.