Q:
The following appeared in an article in a travel magazine:
"After the airline industry began requiring airlines to report their on-time rates, Speedee Airlines achieved the number one on-time rate, with more than 89 percent of its flight arriving on time each month. And now Speedee is offering more flights to more destinations than ever before. Clearly, Speedee is the best choice for today's business traveler.
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A:
The author argues that Speedee Airlines is the best choice for business traveler. However, the statements on which the conclusion is based are not convincing enough to lead one to believe in viability of the conclusion.
To begin with, the author mentions that since the on-time rates were started to be tracked, Speedee Airlines has demonstrated the best result. But this piece of evidence lacks additional information to be a legitimate support for the main conclusion. Namely, the author does not state for how long this tracking of on-time rates has been going on. Maybe the reporting of on-time rates has been introduced only recently, making these initial on-time rate reports unrepresentative of the true situation. Moreover, the author should have discussed what the on-time rates of other airlines are in order to demonstrate that Speedee Airlines actually have a significant advantage in this area.
The author also links the quantity of flights and destinations to the conclusion that Speedee Airlines is the best option for business traveler failing to actually substantiate this statement. The fact that Speedee Airlines is currently offering flights to more destinations than ever before does not at all address the possibility that all the other airlines may offer flights to even more destinations than Speedee Airlines does. Without a basic comparison with other airlines, the fact that Speedee Airlines is now offering flights to more destinations than ever before does not constitute a legitimate reason to claim that Speedee Airlines is the best choice for business traveler.
Finally, the argument completely ignores what factors are the most important for the business traveler when choosing the airlines. The author mentions two apparent advantages of Speedee Airlines but maybe business travelers base their choice of airlines on different determinants. For instance, business travelers might be most concerned about the on-board service quality or ticket booking policies of the airlines.
To sum up, the conclusion of the argument lacks a more comprehensive breakdown of the statements that were provided as a foundation of that conclusion. Without more detailed information about on-time rates reporting system, number of destinations to which other airlines offer flights, and analysis of business travelers motivation when choosing airlines, the argument cannot be considered well-founded and persuasive.
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