What Would It Cost to Be Santa Claus?

What would it cost to play the role of Santa Claus?Kynan Eng:

To make all the toys, it would run up a cost of $24.3 billion, and delivering them via ocean and road freight would add another $683 million (delivery takes 2 months). However, if the toys need to arrive overnight, air freight would amount to $95.8 billion before any discounts. Sadly, there aren’t enough planes available for a one-day delivery, and airport capacity is limited. With every commercial and military plane (totaling 40,000) in use, it would still take around 5 days to make the deliveries. Additional details below.

How many children are there in the world? Where do they live?

Approximately 27 percent of the global population is between the ages of 0 and 14, according to the CIA. If we estimate, this number can be expanded to roughly 32.8 percent of the world's population being aged 0 to 17. People are distributed around the globe as shown in the following list, based on data from August 2016. Note that some regions have a higher percentage of children, but for simplicity, we will disregard this in our calculations.

World Population by Region (2016)

• North America: 579 million (190 million children)
• South America: 423 million (139 million children)
• Europe + Russia: 887 million (291 million children)
• Africa: 1216 million (399 million children)
• India: 1252 million (411 million children)
• East Asia/Oceania: 3043 million (988 million children)

TOTAL: 7.4 billion (2.43 billion children)

What is the cost of making a toy?

In the year 2000, a single McDonald’s Happy Meal toy was produced for just 43 cents. To be generous, let's assume a production cost of $10 per child for toys, including packaging and wrapping. We’ll also consider that these toys weigh 2 kg per child and occupy 0.01 m3 in volume, packaging included. This brings our toy budget to $24.3 billion, with a total shipment weight of 4.86 billion kg and a volume of 48.6 million m3.

Where will the toys be shipped from?

Depending on who you ask, Santa Claus is said to reside in various locations:

In reality, modern Santa’s workshop is located around Shenzhen, China. His northern home mostly serves as a theme park, marketing center, and tax haven. Therefore, everything must be shipped from Shenzhen or nearby Hong Kong.

Shipping cost: Ocean and road freight

The most economical method of shipping is by sea followed by road transport. The figures here are derived from an online freight calculator. A typical 40-foot shipping container offers an interior volume of 67.6 m3, of which approximately 60 m3 is usable after factoring in forklift pallets, etc. This means we can fit 6000 gifts into each container. Consequently, we’ll need to ship 405,000 containers. The world’s largest container ships can carry over 9000 containers, so just 45 ships are needed to transport all the presents. The breakdown of ocean shipping costs is as follows ($cost/container x number of containers):

• North America: Hong Kong to Los Angeles: $1400 x 31667 → $44.3 million
• South America: Hong Kong to Panama: $1450 x 23167 → $33.6 million
• Europe + Russia: Hong Kong to Rotterdam: $750 x 48500 → $36.4 million
• Africa: Hong Kong to Port Said (Egypt): $625 x 66500 → $41.6 million
• India: Hong Kong to Mumbai: $600 x 68500 → $41.1 million
• Asia: Hong Kong to Shanghai: $400 x 507167 → $39.5 million

For the road shipping costs, let’s assume an average distance of 2400 miles, which roughly matches the distance between Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The cost is about $1100 per container within the USA, which we’ll use as the general cost for this calculation. This leads to the following:

Total ocean and road freight cost = $236M + $446M = $683M

Shipping cost: Air freight

The starting point for shipping will be either Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport or Hong Kong International Airport, which are in close proximity. Air freight involves two air segments (Hong Kong → regional hub → destination city) along with one road leg. The only exception to this is within Asia, where just a single flight is necessary. The costs for the first air freight leg are detailed below (quoted per present).

• North America: Hong Kong to Los Angeles: $19 → $3.61 billion
• South America: Hong Kong to Panama: $20 → $2.78 billion
• Europe + Russia: Hong Kong to Frankfurt: $19 → $5.53 billion
• Africa: Hong Kong to Port Said (Egypt): $22 → $8.78 billion
• India: Hong Kong to Mumbai: $25 → $10.28 billion
• Asia: Hong Kong to Beijing: $21 → $20.7 billion

The total for the first leg: $51.7 billion, adding the second leg ($18/present): $43.7 billion, and road transport: $446 million, brings the grand total to $95.8 billion

Do we have sufficient aircraft? In short, no. In 2015, FedEx transported 16.02 billion tonne-km of air freight, while the top 10 companies together moved 85.528 billion tonne-km. This amounts to shipping our load over 17,600 km, a feat only possible if every air freight company could deliver their entire annual capacity in one day. Modern cargo planes vary in capacity, from around 39,780 kg (Boeing 757–200 freighter) to 134,200 kg (Boeing 747–8F). With an average payload of 80,000 kg per plane, we would need 60,750 long-haul flights, plus an equal number of short-haul flights. The world has about 20,000 civilian aircraft and 20,000 military aircraft, but most are not designed for long-haul flights—so a highly organized short-hop relay system would be required.

Another limitation is the number of airports available. A modern airport can typically handle one takeoff every 60 seconds, equating to 1440 flights per day. There are 10 civilian airports within 300 miles of the area, so we can expect to begin around 15,000 flights per day. Therefore, it would take approximately four days to get all of the items airborne. After that, regional and local airports can manage the increased traffic without issue—the world already handles about 100,000 scheduled flights daily.

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