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Standing Room Seats

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Standing Room Seats

by sumanr84 » Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:36 am
Due to high jet fuel costs, airline carriers are looking for new ways to increase revenues and thereby counteract declining profits. Airline A has proposed increasing the number of passengers that can fit on its airplanes by creating several standing room only "seats" in which passengers would be propped against a padded backboard and held in place with a harness. This proposal, since it relates to passenger safety, cannot be implemented without prior approval by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The above statements, if true, indicate that Airline A has made which of the following conclusions?

1. The addition of standing room only "seats" will generate more revenue than the cost of ensuring that these seats meet safety standards.
2. The Federal Aviation Administration will approve Airline A's specific proposal.
3. The revenue generated by the addition of standing room only "seats" is greater than the current cost of jet fuel.
4. There are no safer ways in which Airline A can increase revenues.
5. Passenger safety is less important than increasing revenue.

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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:43 am
I would choose C

A- The stimulus doesn't state that the "seats" won't meet the FAA guidelines

B- This is just pure speculation

C- Correct

D- The stiumulus doesn't explore other options so it is impossible to conclude this

E- The author does not assume that these "seats" would be unsafe.
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by sumanr84 » Sat Feb 13, 2010 12:04 am
osirus, I did exactly the same mistake as yours.

Here is how the expln goes,

Only two pieces of information are given about Airline A's standing room "seats" proposal. First, that it is geared toward increasing revenue in order to counteract declining profits. And second, that, since the proposal relates to passenger safety, it must be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. Airline A must have concluded that the cost of implementation of its proposal is less than the revenue that the new seats will generate.

(A) CORRECT. Since Airline A knows that its proposal would have to comply with safety standards, it must have concluded that the cost of compliance is worth it. In other words, the only way for Airline A to achieve its goal of increasing profit is to implement ideas that will generate more revenue than they cost. Airline A must therefore have concluded that the standing room only "seats" meet this criteria.

(B) The statements in the passage imply nothing about whether Airline A believes that the Federal Aviation Administration will approve the proposal. Although Airline A must believe that the proposal has a chance of being approved (otherwise it's unlikely to have proposed it), the airline might have proposed its specific plan knowing that it might not be approved or, that it might have to be changed in certain ways.

(C) Airline A's goal is simply to "counteract declining profits" caused by the high cost of jet fuel. This does not mean, however, that the proposal must fully mitigate the cost of jet fuel. As long as the proposal increases revenue without a corollary increase in cost, it will in some way (even if it's relatively small) counteract declining profits.

(D) The passage does not mention any other ways that Airline A has considered increasing revenue. Therefore, it is impossible to conclude anything about Airline A's perception of its standing room "seats" proposal to any other ideas.

(E) The statements in the passage do not address Airline A's view regarding the safety of the standing room only "seats". It is very possible that Airline A views its proposal as safe and sees no conflict between passenger safety and increasing revenue, much less that it has made any determination about the relative importance of these two issues.
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by vijay_venky » Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:57 am
IMO A

what could be the conclusion made by AL A (with a prior knowledge that the proposal has to be approved by the FAA)?

the information with AL A
1. The revenues should be increased and the decline in profits has to be addressed.
2. The proposal should be approved by the FAA.(safety should be addressed)

FAA's approval cannot be predicted from this information,so b eliminated.
d and e are extreme statements to be concluded from the above information.

c was a tricky option, but on a closer look the revenue need not certainly be greater than the current fuel cost from the above information. But the option a should have been true.
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by paddle_sweep » Mon May 03, 2010 6:39 am
Good question.
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by layzzer » Wed May 26, 2010 6:27 pm
Can anyone help with the way the question was constructed?

I had and still have problem locating the conclusion. My reading of the question went some like this:

premise: airline is looking to increase revenue

premise: Airline A proposed standing room seats.

premise: plan can't be implemented without approval by the FAA.

Question: Airline A made which of the following assumptions? (I don't believe the question is asking for the conclusion)

Answer A) standing room will meet standards and still generate profit.

I can only infer that the conclusion is Airline A's proposal will increase revenue if approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, or something similar.

Where is the conclusion?
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by sk818020 » Wed May 26, 2010 8:42 pm
I'm with the others A is the answer.

The reason is because the Airline is implementing this program to increase revenue. If A is not true, then why would the Airline implement the program.

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by priyanka_jinadev » Wed Jun 02, 2010 1:39 pm
Thanks sumanr84..

i had chosen C too..but your explanation seems to be valid.
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