Financial Analysis interview preparation

Questions

100

Traced to a firm

42

Firms

28

Updated

September 2026

Asked at

All firmsMoody's7Bain Capital3SSState Street3AMAres Management2BLBlackRock2DED.E. Shaw2MSMorgan Stanley2Oaktree Capital Management2S&P Global2Bridgewater Associates1Citadel1FTFranklin Templeton1Golub Capital1HWHarris Williams1Houlihan Lokey1J.P. Morgan1Jane Street1MWMarshall Wace1Millennium Management1Morningstar1PIMCO1Sycamore Partners1TSTruist Securities1Two Sigma1Vanguard1WMWellington Management1Wells Fargo Securities1Wolverine Trading1

Topic

All topicsThree statements9Accounting policy and standards5Working capital and cash7Ratio analysis8Forecasting and budgeting9Variance and management reporting7Unit economics and costing8Capital budgeting7Cost of capital and valuation7Markets and rates5Modelling, Excel and data8Business partnering6Brainteasers and estimation4Fit and career10

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Type

AnyTechnicalCaseBrainteaserMarket viewFit

1. 052Here are a few figures about an airline. Work out what it should charge for a ticket, and ask me for anything else you need.Unit economics and costingHardcase studyBain CapitalGeneralist · Boston · 2024

   Say this

   I would build cost per available seat kilometre, convert it to cost per seat on the route, divide by the load factor to get cost per sold seat, then add a margin. Before that I need four things: seats per aircraft, sector length, load factor and the split of fixed versus variable cost.

   Then walk it

   1. The structure: total operating cost per flight divided by seats gives cost per seat. Divide by the expected load factor, say 80 percent, and cost per sold seat rises by 25 percent. That step is the one candidates skip and it is the largest single adjustment.
   2. A worked illustration. If a flight costs 15 lakh to operate with 180 seats, that is about 8,300 per seat. At 80 percent load, cost per sold passenger is about 10,400. Add a 10 percent margin and the average fare needs to be around 11,500.
   3. Then I would ask what I am solving for, because the answer differs. The average fare needed to break even on the route is one question; the price of the marginal seat two days before departure is another, and there the only relevant cost is a few hundred rupees of fuel, catering and commission.
   4. That marginal-cost logic is why airlines use dynamic pricing. The same seat is worth 3,000 in a seat-sale ten weeks out and 18,000 to a business traveller on the day, and the fixed cost of the flight is sunk either way.
   5. The inputs I would keep asking for: fuel as a share of cost, aircraft ownership or lease cost per hour, crew and airport charges, ancillary revenue per passenger, and the competitive fare on the route. Ancillary matters enormously for a low-cost carrier; baggage and seat fees can be 15 to 20 percent of revenue.
   6. And the conclusion I would state: cost tells you the floor, competition and willingness to pay tell you the price. In a market with a dominant low-cost competitor, the cost-plus number is often simply unachievable, and then the decision is whether to fly the route at all.

   Where candidates lose it

   Dividing cost by total seats and quoting that as the fare. You must divide by load factor. The second trap is not asking questions: the interviewer deliberately gave you partial data, and the questions you ask are half of what is being marked.

   Expect next

   • What is the marginal cost of the last seat sold?
   • How would ancillary revenue change your answer?
   • A competitor prices 20 percent below your floor. What do you do?

   Reported by candidates at Bain Capital (Generalist, Boston, 2024). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.