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posted by martyb on Sunday July 02 2017, @05:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the dicey-analysis dept.

Passengers have more chance of winning the National Lottery jackpot than being allocated middle seats at random on a Ryanair flight, according to new Oxford University analysis.

In recent weeks Ryanair have faced mounting customer criticism, with some accusing the airline of splitting up groups and families, who do not pay an additional charge for reserved seating. These claims have been rejected by the airline which says that customers who do not wish to pay for their preferred seat are randomly allocated one, free of charge.

Last night, the BBC Consumer affairs programme, Watchdog, ran its own investigation to test how random the airline's seating algorithm is.

As part of their tests, groups of four people were sent on four separate Ryanair flights. In each instance every single person was allocated a middle seat. Dr Jennifer Rogers, Director of the new Oxford University Statistical Consultancy was then invited to analyse the data, to work-out the chances of every person getting a middle seat allocated randomly.

By looking at the amount of window, aisle and middle seating available on each flight, at the time of check-in, Dr Rogers, calculated the chances of all four people being randomly given middle seats on each of the flights, to be around 1:540,000,000. The chances of winning the National Lottery jackpot are 1:45,000,000. (This means that you are 10 times more likely to win the lottery than be in a group who are all randomly allocated middle seats.)

Source: Oxford University


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  • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday July 02 2017, @11:21PM (1 child)

    by Magic Oddball (3847) on Sunday July 02 2017, @11:21PM (#534282) Journal

    I imagine at least some of the TSA agents booting people's laptops for examination react pretty much precisely that way to Linux:

    "Hey, that don't look like Winders! You some kinda hacker or somethin?"
    "No, no, it's Linux, just another operating system, like Mac OS X."
    "I ain't heard of no Linux 'fore." *shouts to burly pig-eyed guard* "Hey, Jim-Bob, we got another one of them hacker types tryin to pull a fast one, says he's got the Laynuts." *he turns back to you with a menacing scowl* "Don't you try to talk bullshit to Jim-Bob, he's been usin the Innernet since 2000 an' even knows that H-M-T-L stuff."
    "Uh, I wasn't going—"
    "You better not. He's gonna check you out, you better not have one of them remote det'naters hidin in yer pants since he's gonna find it if you are."
    "What!? Look, no, I can prove Linux is just—"
    "Don't you argue with me!" *he leads you over to the guard* "Hey, Jim-Bob, we gots us a figher here, he freaked when I said you were gonna check for remotes, so you better make sure he ain't got one up his butt or somethin..."

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday July 02 2017, @11:29PM

    by Magic Oddball (3847) on Sunday July 02 2017, @11:29PM (#534285) Journal

    (Apologies to Soylentils from the deep South or wherever the hell that accent comes from. I was tempted to use a surfer stereotype instead, but making someone sound 'stupidly menacing' rather than 'stoned out of his gourd' when he's talking like Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is a bit too difficult. Trust me, I've tried.)