Reference no: EM132296032

Thinking Critically About Statistics in Business Today Air Passengers' Complaints In recent months, airline passengers have expressed much more dissatisfaction with airline service than ever before. Complaints include flight delays, lost baggage, long runway delays with little or no onboard service, overbooked flights, cramped space due to fuller flights, canceled flights, and grumpy airline employees. A majority of dissatisfied fliers merely grin and bear it. In fact, in the mid-1990s, the average number of complaints per 100,000 passengers boarded was only 0.66. For several years, the average number of complaints increased to 0.74, 0.86, 1.08, and 1.21. In 2014, according to the Department of Transportation, the industrywide figure is an average of 1.34 complaints per 100,000 passengers. Alaska Airlines had the fewest average number of complaints per 100,000 with 0.42, followed by Southwest Airlines with 0.53. Frontier Airlines had the highest average number of complaints per 100,000 with 3.91 followed by United Airlines with 2.71. Because these average numbers of complaints per 100,000 are relatively small and occur randomly, such complaints may follow a Poisson distribution. In such a case, λ represents the average number of complaints; and the interval is 100,000 passengers. For example, using λ = 1.34 complaints (average for all airlines), if 100,000 boarded passengers were contacted, the probability that exactly three of them logged a complaint to the Department of Transportation could be computed as ( 1.34 ) 3 e − 1.34 3 ! = .1050 That is, if 100,000 boarded passengers were contacted over and over, 10.50% of the time exactly three would have logged complaints with the Department of Transportation

Based on the figures given in this feature, can you reach any conclusions about the rate of passenger complaints in general?

Passenger complaints appear to be rare occurrences. Can you suggest some reasons why this is the case?