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> The same effect applies to passenger planes. Airlines complain that they are losing money because so many flights are nearly empty. At the same time passeng
by tshaddox 2y ago
> The same effect applies to passenger planes. Airlines complain that they are losing money because so many flights are nearly empty. At the same time passengers complain that flying is miserable because planes are too full. They could both be right. When a flight is nearly empty, only a few passengers enjoy the extra space. But when a flight is full, many passengers feel the crunch.
But my complaints about flights being too full is based only on my own experience. I don't think people are upset about airplanes crowdedness because they surveyed a bunch of people and concluded from the survey that airplanes are crowded.
- m463 2y agoEven while they're empty, you don't have enough legroom.
- skirmish 2y agoWhat? You just lie down across three seats and enjoy it.
- kibwen 2y ago> But my complaints about flights being too full is based only on my own experience. I don't think people are upset about airplanes crowdedness because they surveyed a bunch of people and concluded from the survey that airplanes are crowded. This is still falling prey to the error described in the OP. Imagine that 99% of all flights were totally empty, and the remaining 1% of flights were completely full. Despite the fact that 99% of all seats are vacant in this scenario, 100% of all flyers will have the experience of being on exclusively packed flights.
- dullcrisp 2y agoYeah but I think they have a point in that when I book a flight in that scenario—if we don’t require that all the completely empty flights remain completely empty—then I’m going to wind up as the only passenger on one of the (previously) empty flights, rather than ending up on the full one. Unless the empty flights don’t allow bookings.
- tshaddox 2y agoExcept that with what I described, there is no paradox. If I report experiencing flights that were all full, and someone says “but 99% of flights were empty,” there is nothing surprising or counterintuitive about that (other than that I would have expected airlines to be more economically reasonable). And it certainly is no consolation to me!
- yummypaint 2y agoI think the idea is that by posting about it online you form a small piece of an informal survey we all conduct continuously. There are more people in your position than people who fly on empty planes, so the reasoning still stands.