Critical Reasoning

Major airlines will purchase many of the new aircrafts capable of carrying more than 500 passengers on transcontinental and transoceanic flights. These airlines currently rely on "hub and spoke" systems of routing, in which large planes, which can seat 400 people and are capable of transoceanic flight, fly into hubs that have runways sufficiently long to handle them. From there, passengers are dispatched to local airports on connecting flights on small planes. With takeoff and landing time slots almost completely booked at most hubs, and little new runway construction expected, airlines will want to expand the volume of passengers they can fly in a given time slot.

The argument above would be most weakened if which of the following were true?

A) The new 500 seat aircraft cost more per seat than existing aircraft
B) Air traffic control systems at most hub airports cannot handle any more flights per hour than they currently do
C) The new 500 seat aircraft require boarding times substantially longer than those of existing aircraft
D) Small passenger aircraft, capable of efficient transcontinental and transoceanic flight and able to land on short runways, have come into service
E) Transoceanic air flights are currently running at near maximum capacity

[spoiler]OA: D[/spoiler]

[spoiler]why is C wrong?[/spoiler]

[email protected] wrote:Hi buoyant,

I'm curious about the source of this question. I found that my original response (since removed) was based on a bit of a "bias" in terms of how I was interpreting the question. While I agree with the correct answer, there's an issue with the "intent" of what this question expects you to do to solve it.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Rich,
this is from Kaplan quiz.what is wrong with C?

Conclusion: Airlines will purchase many 500+ seater planes.

Premises:

1. They currently use the hub and spoke system: large planes bring lots of passengers to hubs, small planes take passengers from hubs to local airports.

2. There is little room for growth in takeoff and landing slots as well as runway construction (which would be another way to increase passengers served)

D works by giving us an alternative. If airlines can now use small planes for the transcontinental flights, do they need to increase the number of passengers on large planes flying into hubs? The airlines will be able to use these new, efficient planes to fly more direct routes, so the purcahse of the larger planes might be unnecessary.

C does not affect the need for more passenger capacity and is a little vague as well. It's possible the increased number of seats would outweigh the "significant" increase in boarding time.

I also think this one is a little weird.