Multiple Attribute Probabilistic Assessment of the Performance of Some Airlines

Abstract

Organisations are increasingly ranked according to their performance. This is usually done by some third party for general consumption. Two considerations then become important: first, that those making the ranking wish to appear to be doing so as objectively as possible; second, that it is desirable that the rationale for the relative performance measures are transparent and easily appreciated by the non-expert consumer.

A simple weighted sum of attributes provides a measure that is easy to explain but there remains the “problem of weight determination. In other circumstances equivocation over the determination of parameter values is addressed via risk analysis. It is argued that it is similarly meaningful to give probability distributions for the values of weights. Consequently, it will not always be possible to discriminate between organisations and so some idea of clustering is more appropriate than ranking. Multidimensional Scaling may be used to present visually the dispositions of organisations according to the degree to which their relative performances are significantly different and performance clusters thereby determined.

The method is illustrated by application to thirty international airlines.