Better explicating the strengths and shortcomings of these models will help refine projections and improve transparency in the years ahead.
Image credit: Witsawat.S.
Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved March 30, 2016 (received for review November 3, 2015)
Article Figures & SI
Tables
Disruptive passengers Percent of incidents (%) Incident type Percent of incidents (%) Cabin Percent of incidents (%)* Female 23.83 Belligerent behavior 29.00 First class 15.26 Male 72.49 Drugs 0.14 Economy class 83.98 Two or more people 0.66 Emotional 5.50 Missing 0.76 Missing 3.02 Intoxication 31.75 Noncompliant 18.67 Sexual 0.90 Smoking 10.90 Other (e.g., medical related) 3.14 Data reported here are at the incident (rather than the flight) level of analysis.
↵* A t test between raw number of incidents between economy and first class is significant at P < 0.0001.
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Dependent variable Economy class incident Economy class incident First class incident Dataset All flights Flights with first class Flights with first class Predictor variables Economy seats 1.0010 (0.0012) 1.0031** (0.0014) — First class seats — — 1.0342** (0.0139) Economy seat width (cm) 0.9514* (0.0243) 1.2175*** (0.0922) — Economy seat pitch (cm) 0.9887 (0.0101) 1.0093 (0.0125) — First class seat width (cm)† — — 0.8147 (0.1101) Flight distance in miles 1.0004**** (0.0001) 1.0004**** (0.0001) 1.0003** (0.0001) Flight delay in hours 1.1524**** (0.0151) 1.1393**** (0.0157) 1.0526 (0.0468) Cabin area (m2) 1.1186** (0.0528) 1.1213** (0.0610) 1.4777*** (0.1969) International flight (1 = yes) 0.6840**** (0.0681) 0.7185*** (0.0720) 0.8212 (0.1869) First class present (1 = yes) 3.8431**** (0.4743) — — Boarding from front (1 = yes) — 2.1754*** (0.6083) 11.8594** (11.8367) McFadden’s pseudo R2 0.1028 0.0578 0.0675 Values presented are odds ratios with robust SEs. The full dataset represented ∼150–300 unique arrival and departure airports, and between 500 and 1,000 unique flight routes. SEs are adjusted clusters based on plane route (i.e., the specific departure airport and arrival airport combination). All models include fixed effects for flight regions (suppressed for space but included in SI Methods). Observations were dropped because they were in a flight region that had no incidents. Flights with first class present are ∼46.1% of the population of flights. No flights without first class boarded from the middle of the plane. *P < 0.10, **P < 0.05, ***P < 0.01, ****P < 0.0001.
↵† Seat pitch data are not available because many first class seats had their own pods/beds.
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Economy incident (= 1) 0.0008 0.0284 1.000 2. Economy seats on aircraft 77.3954 54.5150 0.043 3. Flight distance in miles 828.7911 1071.8160 0.046 0.793 4. Flight delay in hours 0.1831 0.5285 0.011 0.062 0.076 5. Economy seat width (cm) 44.7551 2.1920 0.006 0.023 0.102 0.062 6. Economy seat pitch (cm) 80.0689 4.9370 0.022 0.478 0.489 0.046 -0.155 7. Cabin area [height × width (m2)] 5.9459 2.4896 0.041 0.912 0.794 0.055 -0.081 0.676 8. International flight (= 1) 0.3328 0.4712 0.015 0.260 0.381 0.074 0.135 0.234 0.276 9. First class present (= 1) 0.4608 0.4985 0.025 0.661 0.530 0.066 0.206 0.317 0.613 0.296 - Table S2.
Flight level variable descriptives and correlations (only flights with first class)
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. First class incident (= 1) 0.0003 0.0168 1.000 2. Economy incident (= 1) 0.0015 0.0392 −0.001 3. First class seats on aircraft 14.2108 7.6034 0.022 0.038 4. Economy seats on aircraft 116.3521 58.2437 0.021 0.038 0.925 5. Flight distance in miles 1443.3130 1322.5140 0.022 0.041 0.777 0.714 6. Flight delay in hours 0.2206 0.5919 0.002 0.011 0.050 0.045 0.060 7. First class seat width (cm)* 52.2694 1.2478 0.002 0.005 0.229 0.272 0.120 −0.007 8. Economy seat width (cm) 45.2445 0.7398 0.004 0.008 0.097 0.153 0.100 −0.000 −0.497 9. Economy seat pitch (in cm) 81.7603 6.7471 0.008 0.016 0.509 0.348 0.405 0.046 0.337 −0.366 10. Cabin area [height × width (m2)] 7.5961 2.7509 0.019 0.035 0.916 0.867 0.736 0.049 0.276 0.172 0.640 11. International (= 1) 0.4837 0.4997 0.007 0.011 0.228 0.151 0.350 0.055 −0.045 −0.013 0.243 0.212 12. Front boarding (= 1) 0.8616 0.3453 −0.019 −0.035 −0.877 −0.762 −0.736 −0.060 0.089 −0.084 −0.627 −0.873 −0.273 ↵* Seat pitch data are not available for first class because many first class seats had their own pods/beds.
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Dependent variable Economy class incident Economy class incident First class incident Dataset All flights Flights with first class Flights with first class Predictor variables Economy seats 1.0008 (0.0012) 1.0034** (0.0015) — First class seats — — 1.0389*** (0.0152) Economy seat width (cm) 0.9542* (0.0230) 1.2755** (0.0928) — Economy seat pitch (cm) 0.9874 (0.0100) 1.0120 (0.0128) — First class seat width (cm)† — — 0.8014 (0.1095) Flight distance in miles 1.0004**** (0.0000) 1.0004**** (0.0001) 1.0003** (0.0002) Flight delay (h) 1.1450**** (0.0167) 1.1324**** (0.0174) 1.0263 (0.0556) Cabin area (m2) 1.1282*** (0.0522) 1.1298** (0.0602) 1.5079*** (0.2090) International (1 = yes) 0.6348 **** (0.0679) 0.6321**** (0.0736) 0.6985 (0.1682) First class present (1 = yes) 4.0358**** (0.4860) — — Boarding from front (1 = yes) — 2.3452*** (0.6018) 14.5774*** (14.9644) Departure time (hours since midnight) 1.0610**** (0.0108) 1.0555**** (0.0113) 1.0719**** (0.0174) Flight frequency 1.0000 (0.0000) 0.9999** (0.0000) 0.9999 (0.0001) Month (April base category) August 0.7926** (0.0936) 0.7856** (0.0959) 0.8886 (0.2329) December 0.7004*** (0.0873) 0.6772*** (0.0899) 0.7176 (0.2120) February 0.7985* (0.0963) 0.7899* (0.0998) 1.3023 (0.3466) January 0.9545 (0.1060) 0.9552 (0.1104) 0.7830 (0.1973) July 0.8626 (0.0936) 0.8311 (0.0940) 0.7973 (0.2373) June 1.0048 (0.1045) 0.9678 (0.1053) 1.0626 (0.3235) March 0.8410 (0.0955) 0.8274 (0.0981) 1.1010 (0.3162) May 0.8737 (0.0928) 0.8737 (0.0942) 1.3086 (0.3785) November 0.9916 (0.1345) 0.9484 (0.1394) 1.1489 (0.2955) October 0.8826 (0.1034) 0.8466 (0.1046) 0.8678 (0.2486) September 0.8073 (0.0991) 0.7895* (0.1005) 0.5751 (0.2080) Day of week (Friday base category) Monday 1.1156 (0.0947) 1.0852 (0.0956) 1.1615 (0.2278) Saturday 0.9791 (0.0851) 0.9246 (0.0847) 1.0270 (0.2346) Sunday 0.8935 (0.0831) 0.8771 (0.0847) 1.0171* (0.2239) Thursday 0.9819 (0.0917) 0.9391 (0.0932) 1.1982 (0.2734) Tuesday 0.9835 (0.0828) 0.9529 (0.0840) 0.8530 (0.2079) Wednesday 1.1212 (0.1025) 1.1259 (0.1076) 0.9695 (0.1967) Departure region–Arrival region (North East Asia–North America base category) Western Europe–North America 2.7185*** (0.7986) 2.3992*** (0.6798) 2.2256 (1.4225) Caribbean–Caribbean — — — Caribbean–North America 4.3515**** (1.6960) 2.6477** (1.0756) 1.3763 (1.2952) Central America–North America 5.0667**** (1.9621) 3.0136*** (1.2487) 2.7034 (2.3901) Lower South America–Lower South America 4.5467*** (2.5514) 3.1730** (1.7454) 1.4500 (1.8677) Lower South America–North America 1.6300 (0.6397) 1.5842 (0.6269) 0.5646 (0.2442) Upper South America–North America 2.1686 (1.0466) 1.6923 (0.8105) 3.0285 (2.8611) Middle East–North America 1.6573** (0.3753) 1.6140** (0.3628) 2.3261** (0.9126) North America–North East Asia 1.1166 (0.2305) 1.0902 (0.2263) 1.3890 (0.5479) North America–Western Europe 1.5173 (0.4418) 1.3800 (0.3893) 1.2410 (0.7806) North America–Caribbean 4.3375**** (1.7686) 2.5632** (1.1050) 3.1779 (2.9010) North America–Central America 4.3579**** (1.7757) 2.5610** (1.1041) 1.2651 (1.3415) North America–Lower South America 0.8515 (0.1796) 0.8302 (0.1696) 0.2969 (0.2746) North America–Upper South America 3.5670*** (1.4991) 2.7456*** (1.0720) — North America–Middle East 1.7707*** (0.3936) 1.7261*** (0.3786) 1.8967* (0.7141) North America–North America 2.5737** (0.9614) 1.6259 (0.6388) 1.3173 (1.1065) North America–Southwest Pacific 0.3888**** (0.0597) 0.3661**** (0.0592) 0.8155 (0.1967) Southwest Pacific–North America 0.9666 (0.1519) 0.8753 (0.1456) 1.6312* (0.4083) McFadden’s pseudo R2 0.1080 0.0630 0.0758 Values presented are odds ratios with robust SEs. The full dataset represented ∼150–300 unique arrival and departure airports, and between 500 and 1,000 unique flight routes. SEs are adjusted clusters based on plane route (i.e., the specific departure airport and arrival airport combination). All models include fixed effects for flight regions. Observations were dropped because they were in a flight region that had no incidents. Flights with first class present are ∼46.1% of the population of flights. No flights without first class boarded from the middle of the plane. *P < 0.10, **P < 0.05, ***P < 0.01, ****P < 0.0001.
↵† Seat pitch data are not available because many first class seats had their own pods/beds.
Data supplements
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Inequality on airplanes predicts air rage
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