The mission
Picture yourself, a data science consultant, in a conference room in Forth Worth, Texas, during early January 2019. In this conference room, executives for one of the world's largest airlines, American Airlines (AA), are briefing you on their on-time performance (OTP). OTP is a widely accepted key performance indicator for flight punctuality. It is measured as the percentage of flights that arrived within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival. It turns out that AA has achieved an OTP of just over 80% for 3 years in a row, which is already acceptable, and much better than before, but they are still ninth in the world and fifth in North America. To brag about it next year in their advertising, they aspire to achieve, at least, number one in North America for 2019, besting their biggest rivals.
On the financial front, it is estimated that delays cost the airline close to $2 billion, so reducing this by even 25-35% to be on parity with their competitors could produce...
