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Old Dec 16, 2011 | 5:26 am
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Originally Posted by QBK
Well, as has also been pointed out,



...my numbers have been pulled from thin air. I mean, heck, 91% of statistics are made up on the spot.

However, checking one's math is always a good idea. When I check my math (using the original made-up numbers of 10K per GM and 40K per elite), I find that if we have N flyers, and 15% of them are elite, then 85% of them are non-elite. So we have a total of (0.15 x 40K x N = 6000N) passenger-miles flown by elites, and (0.85 x 10K x N = 8500N) passenger-miles flown by non-elites. So the total number of passenger-miles flown is 14500N, of which a fraction

6000N / 14500N = 41.3793%

are flown by elites.

Which is sort of a long way of saying that, tragically, it's not that easy, because you have to renormalize the distribution.
Not only that, but those are just averages, so that, on a given flight, on a given route, it is possible to have something more like 90% elites...or not
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