US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - How misleading is this?

http://www.usairways.com/promotions/specials/shuttle.htm#On

Note DL and US have exactly the same score. how to lie with statistics, or just how to lie?

The folks in my office got into this debate earlier today when the same graph showed up in a US Airways pop-up ad on the Washington Post's Web site.

US would probably argue that the horizontal bars are unrelated to the percentages printed on them because the bars measure the total number of on-time flights while the percentages show the portion of each carrier's total flights that arrived on-time -- similar, but very different measures.

Of course the horizontal bars are going to allow US to come out on top since US has more departures in the shuttle markets than Delta, Eagle or Amtrak, giving US a larger population of total flights from which to draw its total number of on-time flights.

It's misleading at best and dishonest at worst. Oh, and the fact that I saw this on a pop-up add didn't earn US any points in my book.

[This message has been edited by DCAview (edited 02-28-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Alpha Golf:
http://www.usairways.com/promotions/specials/shuttle.htm#On

Note DL and US have exactly the same score. how to lie with statistics, or just how to lie?

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Thats actually fairly accurate. They came in at the highest percentage with far more flights which should be rewarded with a higher place.

Using on-time arrivals as the standard of measure is cute.

They currently publish 70 minutes (or so) from departure to arrival for the BOS-LGA shuttle. This for a flight that under optimal runway configuration and traffic conditions is around 30 minutes from wheels-in-the-well to touchdown. So 70 minutes plus DOT 14 minutes minus 30 minutes gives them nearly an hour of taxi time and slop to meet the on time goal.

If I was king of US Airways I would allot 48 hours for each flight. This would ensure achivement of a 98% ontime performance goal.

sheesh. I suppose one of my three spelling of "on time" has to be correct.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ATC:
Using on-time arrivals as the standard of measure is cute.

They currently publish 70 minutes (or so) from departure to arrival for the BOS-LGA shuttle. This for a flight that under optimal runway configuration and traffic conditions is around 30 minutes from wheels-in-the-well to touchdown. So 70 minutes plus DOT 14 minutes minus 30 minutes gives them nearly an hour of taxi time and slop to meet the on time goal.
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DL also factors in 70 minute block times.

The thrust of my message was not US Airways vs. Delta performance as much as it was the questionable metrics of what constitutes "on time."

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ATC:
Using on-time arrivals as the standard of measure is cute.

They currently publish 70 minutes (or so) from departure to arrival for the BOS-LGA shuttle. This for a flight that under optimal runway configuration and traffic conditions is around 30 minutes from wheels-in-the-well to touchdown. So 70 minutes plus DOT 14 minutes minus 30 minutes gives them nearly an hour of taxi time and slop to meet the on time goal.
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So with that much buffer, how are they getting ONLY 91%? ;-)

I'd be a pretty happy camper if ALL of my flights arrived 91% of the time within the 15 minutes of the FAA designated time frame!

Personally, I think it's a good marketing tool (vs. the train particularly).