The approach

Upon careful consideration, you have decided to approach this both as a regression problem and a classification problem. Therefore, you will produce models that predict minutes delayed as well as models that classify whether flights were delayed by more than 15 minutes or not. For interpretation, using both will enable you to use a wider variety of methods, and expand your interpretation accordingly. Also, dimensionality reduction can only further enrich interpretation possibilities. So we will approach this example by taking the following steps:

1. Predicting minutes delayed with various regression methods
2. Classifying flights as delayed or not delayed with various classification methods
3. Visualizing delayed flights with dimensionality reduction methods

These steps in the Reviewing traditional model interpretation methods section are followed by conclusions spread out in the rest of the sections of this chapter.