Originally Posted by
warrens
Airline data analysts would certainly use vastly more precise data than a single number all routes, timetables and plane types, which also ignores weather, security and other extenuating circumstances. They have all this information available to them, why would they ignore it?
Again, repeating myself: OTP is an extremely reductionist number that doesn't have any usefulness outside of giving outsiders something to argue about.
But not everyone is a data analyst with all the data and tools to measure operational performance. If such data was readily available, I would assume people here would be comparing AC 7M7 performance with WS or WN 7M7. There are investors, travel agencies, cargo planners, logistics operators, regular or frequent travelers that need some simple metric to assess an airline's operation and make an assessment. Again, OTP is simplified but it has to start somewhere that's consistent across all airlines.
Same goes for calculating RASM or CASM. One could argue about discrepancies on currency, purchasing power, high vs. low cost markets, airport slots/gates, etc. But it's still a metric that allows some standard comparison.