Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Well two months on and it would seem my optimism was misplaced - Heathrow continues to publish those dodgy Q1 stats and has clearly decided to brazen it out, maintaining disingenuously that it's not aware of any issues with the data, even though any bright GCSE Maths student could spot the flaky arithmetic a mile off.
A week later, and a few more facts have emerged. The plot thickens ...
Heathrow denies that it's mathematically challenged, and instead rather strangely maintains that nobody could possibly derive the Fly Quiet and Clean scores just based on the airlines' relative performance for each of the seven weighted metrics (despite the FQC website saying that that's exactly how the scoring does work).
Instead, it says, there are various fudge factors ("inputs"), which it won't divulge, but which are applied to the scores obtained from the airlines' relative performance, and have the happy effect of inflating those scores by an average of about 45%. Even worse, these increases aren't applied uniformly (some airlines have their scores more than doubled), which of course then alters the relative league table rankings.
Fortuitously, that has the effect of propelling BA from the Number 5 slot that its performance actually merits to its customary slot at the top of the table, so it can't be all bad. Unless you work for Aer Lingus, deprived of the Number 1 slot it deserves, or unfortunate carriers like SriLankan or Icelandair, who get shunted nearly 20 places down the table from where they should rightfully be.
A cynic might think that the more an airline pays in landing fees, the better its chances of being classified as quiet and clean.
