Video Case 7 - Southwest Airlines - Statistics Turn Data into Information

1. What types of data are collected by Southwest Airlines and reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation Statistics (BTS)?

2. Describe the data collected, maintained and published by the Department of Transportation about airlines from a contextual perspective (Who, What, Why, When, Where).

3. How does the BTS turn raw data into meaningful information?

4. Why is the information obtained from data collected about the airline industry valuable? What decisions are based on this information?

Video Case8 - Starwood Hotels and Resorts

One Outlier Can Change the Results of a Statistical Analysis

1. How do managers at Starwood Hotels forecast demand for rooms? What goes into generating a good forecast?

2. What is an outlier? When outliers are found in the historical room occupancy data, how does Starwood Hotels deal with them?

3. What statistical methods are particularly sensitive to outliers?

4. How can outliers be detected?