The Law of Large Numbers
Millions of travelers move every day. Movement creates friction. And friction can create problems
Unless your business travels have left you stranded on a desert island for the past couple of months, you’ve probably heard plenty in the news about the various calamities in the US aviation system recently. Smartphone cameras and social media beam raw footage to an audience worldwide and people are aghast – and rightly so. But the problem with all this instant news, I would argue, is the lack of context, a filter, the back story with facts that aren’t seen. We may know the truth, but not the whole truth.
There’s a time-worn trope in journalism:“News is the first rough draft of history.”As a journalist and a writer I would add this cautionary note: Rough drafts are made to be rewritten – and perhaps thrown out altogether. But once we’ve seen viral videos of altercations at airports or on airplanes, we can’t unsee them, no matter what other facts about the situation come to light.
We all have our own opinions about these incidents. And as frequent travelers, we may have more information and insight than the average passenger. That said, everyone seems eager to chime in with assumptions, interpretations and no small quota of‘facts’that simply aren’t factual. And while I certainly have my own thoughts on the matter, I will refrain from piling on.
However in the interests of objectivity, I would like to offer some context. So I’ve been doing the math. (Yes, I know – mathematics in the hands of a journalist is a scary thing, but I beg your indulgence.)
Since much of the current controversy centers on denied boarding, or‘bumping,’I looked into the US Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report. It turns out that US airlines posted a record low bumping rate of 0.62 per 10,000 passengers in 2016 – the lowest annual rate since DOT started tracking that data back to 1995.
Unsure of what 0.62 of a passenger would look like, I tried to visualize it in context. Let’s say you’re at a major college football game with 100,000 other fans. The ticket takers decide that the stadium might get overcrowded, so they apply the same percentages to deny entry to some ticket holders. At that rate, fewer than 7 fans would miss the game.
Now if you’re one of those 7 fans you are going to be unhappy, and this is in no way a defense of the ticket takers; perhaps they should have closed the box office rather than oversell the stadium. The point is, public perception of widespread problems in the travel industry is due in part to the law of large numbers. There aren’t tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of travelers – there are millions, every day. As a consequence the number of occasions when things can go wrong also grows exponentially.
The events of a few weeks this Spring have highlighted the need, and indeed the desire, of everyone in the travel value chain to up their game, to pay attention to perceptions and never be satisfied with dissatisfaction, even in small numbers. Whether it’s 7 travelers or 70,000, everyone is entitled to the best travel experience their ticket can buy.
On the other hand, those of us who travel a lot see the law of large numbers at work on every trip. And we have a role to play in the value chain as well, whether it’s showing patience in the face of delays, expressing appreciation for exceptional service or lending a helping hand to a fellow traveler.
It all depends on the context. BT