We all know that misuse of statistics is rife in today’s society. One prime example would be the one Erin gave us in her lecture, where Pfizer were being a bit naughty. Lots of misuse such as this occurs when people mistreat the results they have already collected as they basically don’t say what the person wanted them to say. I’m going to be looking at a different kind of misuse, particularly from Ryanair regarding their ‘On-time’ statistics, which will show that not just scrutiny of the resultant numbers, but of the whole process of the study should be viewed very carefully.
Firstly, I would like to point out that Ryanair are not part of the IATA (all necessary information can be found here IATA). As well as dealing with lots of operational aspects of aviation, they are also the private body responsible for monitoring whether flights are on-time. This means that any on-time statistics that Ryanair give are based on their own research. Immediately alarm bells should be ringing, as our elephant in the corner named ‘Bias’ just sneezed really loudly, getting the attention of the whole room. As it turns out, there is something fishy with their statistics. We can see from here (http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-no-1-customer-service-stats-november-2010-2) that Ryanair clearly state that for November 2009 they had an on-time percentage of 93%. However an independent analysis (http://images.emailroi.com/users/flightstats/library164.pdf) shows that in reality it was more like 82.33%. So what’s up with this incongruence? Well, for starters, the independent survey was mainly carried out at more major airports and routes. Well, I hear you say, that makes it totally unfair to Ryanair, because they don’t just fly main routes, they fly to other places as well. Well herein lies one of the problems; by flying on non-major routes, into relatively obscure airports, they can pretty much guarantee there will be no delays due to traffic and congestion, but these airports are usually very very far away from the advertised destination. In one famous example, an advertised route to Copenhagen actually landed in Sweden! A route advertising Bologna as a destination in fact landed if Forli, roughly 65km away from bologna. Another way they manipulate their punctuality statistics is by saying a flight will take longer than it actually does. For example, a route that would take 50 minutes to fly is advertised as taking 1 hour 20 minutes. This allows for half an hour leeway without affecting the punctuality.
So when looking at Ryanair’s published on-time statistics, it appears that 93% could indeed be correct, and if you looked at the numbers, then you probably would come to the same conclusion as well. But by digging a little deeper, and analysing how they got the numbers they did, it seems a little suspect. This displays that statistics goes well beyond just looking at numbers. A comprehensive knowledge of how studies are carried out is needed to effectively analyse if the data reported is true, ultimately, correct.
tallesttales 
I enjoyed the dig at Ryanair! They are indeed one of the sneaky companies to look out for. By going further into how the data was collected you have been able to show up their misuse of statistics. In the case of Ryanair the misuse of statistics is most definitely not accidental. They are using the facts and figures to manipulate their target audience and sway them into a false sense of security. There are many types of misuse, but they types I think Ryanair are most likely to have done is using loaded questions in their surveys and questionnaires, which can induce a preferred response from a participant, and data manipulation. This means that Ryanair either selectively chose data or even made it up. One way to disprove all of Ryanair’s data is for another company to reproduce their study, and if this is not possible or if they generate completely different data then Ryanair cannot continue to use their false statistics.
I very much liked the use of Ryanair in this example of manipulated statistics. Its clear you have done a lot of work to conclude that Ryanair was purposefully changing the stats. I agree that stats are not always in the numbers but also in the description as shown in adverts such as l’oreal that uses big number statistics with limited explanation. Its also interesting that you could find this out but most people would just take the statistic as read. This does lead to the question of who is responsible for ensuring these manipulated statistics are not used or published. The IATA as an independent body that does look at the real statistics but Ryanair still got away with doing there own stats. Therefore perhaps more education on stats to the wider public would be use so that people can be aware and understand how manipulated stats can be used.