Logical Reasoning

PT135 · S4 · Q3 Travel industry consultant: Several airlines

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Travel industry consultant: Several airlines are increasing elbow room and leg room in business class, because surveys show that business travelers value additional space more than, say, better meals.

Conclusion (should)

Airlines are too worried about business class passengers and should instead focus on the comfort of leisure travelers.

Evidence (because)

Leisure travelers purchase 80% of all airline tickets.

Evaluate

This argument seems reasonable ... shouldn't airlines focus on 80% of their customer base, rather than a share that is 20% or less?

There is a famous rule called the 80/20 rule in which you find out that . On Twitter and Facebook, .

Given that ... leisure travelers are 80% of customers and business travelers are 20% or less,

How could we still argue that ... the airlines are smart to focus on business travelers rather than leisure travelers?

Maybe even though the business travelers buy fewer tickets, they're the bulk of the airlines' Yelp reviews? Or maybe disgruntled business travelers have enough influence to get people fired at the airline? Maybe they buy more last second airfare, which is usually more expensive?

Goal

Find some way to justify focusing on business travelers, rather than leisure travelers, even though the business travelers buy less than 1/5 of all airline tickets.

3.

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the reasoning in the travel industry consultant's argument?

  1. Business travelers often make travel

    Weak Impact

    This certainly provides a common sense reason why a business should try make all customers feel like their patronage is valued. But this doesn't offer us a reason why we should prioritize pleasing business travelers over leisure travelers, who buy 80% of the tickets.

    2% picked this

  2. Some airlines have indicated that

    No Impact

    This is a super weak answer. The word "some" means at least one, and so we very rarely see correct answers to Strengthen, Weaken, or Paradox with the word "some / sometimes / not all". One data point does not usually have much impact on a conversation. Also, to the extent that it has any impact, it seems to fit with the author's advice and thus would only seem to strengthen.

    2% picked this

  3. Sleeping in comfort during long

    No Impact

    First of all, this is another weakly worded answer. Saying that "X is not the primary concern of Y" doesn't mean that "Y is unconcerned with X". It only means that X is not the #1 concern. It could still be the #2 concern! Even if we did say that leisure travelers are totally unconcerned about sleeping in comfort, this would have no impact on the author's argument. She is just saying let's direct more efforts towards increasing the comfort of leisure travelers. She didn't say it had to relate to sleeping in comfort. It could relate to reading in comfort / watching movies / being able to get to the bathroom, etc.

    5% picked this

  4. Correct

    A far greater proportion of

    Why this is right

    This gives us a way to argue that "even though business travelers only account for 20% of tickets, you should still focus on pleasing them", because if we make more money off those tickets, then that could still be a huge business priority. If a Coach ticket is $200 while a business class ticket is $800, then four coach customers are as valuable to us as is one business class ticket (don't even get me started about the groveling we're prepared to do for our First Class customers). This answer is sort of like how sports stadiums and luxury boxes work. Yes, 90% of the ticket holders aren't in luxury boxes, but the 10% who are make us such a higher profit margin that their concerns are our utmost priority.

    Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    89% picked this

  5. Most leisure travelers buy airline

    Weaker Impact

    This has something resembling the effect of (D), but it's not as strong. If most leisure travelers buy discount tickets, then the profit margin on their tickets is probably lower than on business class, so it sets up a similar feeling of, "Oh. So even though the majority of tickets go to leisure travelers, the real money-making tickets are business class tickets!" But if we ask ourselves, "Which answer, (D) or (E), does a better job of convincing me that airlines make more money off business class tickets", (D) wins because it explicitly says that. (E) suggests it might be true (assuming that business travelers usually buy full-price tickets, which we were not told).

    3% picked this

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