Last year Ranger Airways' annual report showed an increase in the numb

Question

Last year Ranger Airways' annual report showed an increase in the number of revenue passenger miles (the total for all flights of the number of miles in each flight times the number of paying passengers in that flight). There were, however, declines in both the load factor-the percentage of available seats occupied- and the number of flights.

if you see the paradox statement it does state that load factor is a percentage of anything, so how an avg increase in the length of flight will have any bearing on seats occupied.

Which of the following, if true about Ranger Airways in the year reported on, would help most to resolve the apparent paradox between the increase in revenue passenger miles and the decreases in both load factor and number of flights?

A. The average passenger capacity of airplanes decreased.
B. The average length of flights increased.
C. There was an increase in the number of delays in both departures and arrivals.
D. There was an increase in the number of nonpaying passengers.
E. Many of the passenger fares became more expensive.

CR16817

unraveled · Answer

Last year Ranger Airways' annual report showed an increase in the number of revenue passenger miles (the total for all flights of the number of miles in each flight times the number of paying passengers in that flight). There were, however, declines in both the load factor-the percentage of available seats occupied- and the number of flights.

if you see the paradox statement it does state that load factor is a percentage of anything, so how an avg increase in the length of flight will have any bearing on seats occupied.

Which of the following, if true about Ranger Airways in the year reported on, would help most to resolve the apparent paradox between the increase in revenue passenger miles and the decreases in both load factor and number of flights?

A. The average passenger capacity of airplanes decreased.
B. The average length of flights increased.
C. There was an increase in the number of delays in both departures and arrivals.
D. There was an increase in the number of nonpaying passengers.
E. Many of the passenger fares became more expensive.

Revenue passenger miles, RPM = no. of flights(f) * no. of miles(m) * no. of paying passengers(pp)
Load factor = occupied seats / available seats i.e. 'pp' decreased.
As per passage RPM increased. and load factor & number of flights decreased. Price is not given so to get revenue it has to be multiplied to f, m and pp.
As we can see that one parameter i.e. 'm' is still left about which we don't know anything yet, so we need find about number of miles.

Among the options only B and E make some sense. A gives nothing new. C is irrelevant. D makes thing more complex.
E is open for it is using 'many' which can mean anything. It can have either a minimal effect or some effect. 
B, on the other hand, average miles per flight increased. So, its quantum must be so much that it negates the two decreases to eventually increase RPM.

IMO Answer B.

Kritisood · Answer

IMO, B cus if the average length of flights increased that means that the average miles increased, and hence RPM increased even if the other factors decreased.

Subhrajyoti · Answer

Last year Ranger Airways' annual report showed an increase in the number of revenue passenger miles (the total for all flights of the number of miles in each flight times the number of paying passengers in that flight). There were, however, declines in both the load factor-the percentage of available seats occupied- and the number of flights.

if you see the paradox statement it does state that load factor is a percentage of anything, so how an avg increase in the length of flight will have any bearing on seats occupied.

if you see the paradox statement it does state that load factor is a percentage of anything, so how an avg increase in the length of flight will have any bearing on seats occupied.

arora1 · Answer

Revenue passenger mile= sum for all flights (number of miles * number of passengers)
 E deals with passenger fare, and therefore does not resolve the paradox!

sujanasathish · Answer

OA:B

Look for the factors that attacks the fact : increase in the number of revenue passenger miles -
(no. of miles * no. of passengers).

Look out for options that can directly be proportional to the expression.Only B satisfies.

mSKR · Answer

1. total miles increased = number of flights miles* number of passengers 
2. Decreased= % passengers seats and number of flights

If 2 is decreased, then how we can prove 1 is still increased?
Either
 increase number of miles = same flights but cover more distance  --option B 
OR 
number of passengers increased ( maybe capacity increased ; so % seems less but actually total nymber of passengers increase)- opposite of option A

A. The average passenger capacity of airplanes decreased.
opposite; if capacity was increased then the option could have been relevant

B. The average length of flights increased.
it explains why total miles are increased

C. There was an increase in the number of delays in both departures and arrivals.
irrelevant

D. There was an increase in the number of nonpaying passengers.- irrelevant

E. Many of the passenger fares became more expensive. - 
how to explain increase in total miles. If anything, it doesn;t weakens the statement1

hence B is the suitable answer

soondoobu · Answer

Here is my reasoning for this question. This took me a while. I managed to eliminate all 4 incorrect choices but still have a hard time convincing myself that B is the right answer. Any help please?  GMATNinja   MartyTargetTestPrep   VeritasKarishma  
Last year Ranger Airways' annual report showed an increase in the number of revenue passenger miles (the total for all flights of the number of miles in each flight times the number of paying passengers in that flight). There were, however, declines in both the load factor-the percentage of available seats occupied- and the number of flights.

Which of the following, if true about Ranger Airways in the year reported on, would help most to resolve the apparent paradox between the increase in revenue passenger miles and the decreases in both load factor and number of flights?

A. The average passenger capacity of airplanes decreased.  This doesn't help to explain the paradox. The stem already mentions this explicitly. 
B. The average length of flights increased.  This is the correct answer. I understand that this would help explain the increase in RPM, but don't see how it would help explain the decrease in LF and # of flight. Please help!!! 
C. There was an increase in the number of delays in both departures and arrivals.  delays in flights are not part of the equations listed above. 
D. There was an increase in the number of nonpaying passengers.  we are only concerned with paying passengers as mentioned in the paragraph above. 
E. Many of the passenger fares became more expensive.  $ of airfares are not part of the equations in the paragraph above, so it does nothing to help solve the paradox.

KarishmaB · Answer

RPM = No of miles in flight1 * No of paying passengers in flight 1 + No of miles in flight2 * No of paying passengers in flight 2 + ... (all flights)
RPM has increased.

Load factor = Occupied seats/Available Seats * 100
Load factor has decreased.

No of flights has decreased.

This is the paradox - there are fewer flights and fewer paying passengers per flight (assuming the plane capacity hasn't increased suddenly because of new planes etc). Still RPM has increased. How is that? There is only one other factor that can change RPM and that is no of miles in each flight. 
If the flights are getting longer, that could result in increased RPM inspite of fewer passengers and fewer flights.

That is answer (B). We need to explain how is it possible that RPM has increased inspite of fewer flights and passengers. Option (B) does that.

sayan640 · Answer

KarishmaB  Would you like to provide your explanation for option E) ?

KarishmaB · Answer

Money is out of scope of this discussion except for helping us identify the number of passengers (paying passengers).
RPM is not revenue earned in dollars. It is sum of all No of miles * no of people. That is what has increased. How? Either number of miles must have increased or number of people or total number of flights themselves.

Option (E) is irrelevant because it talks about money.

sherlocked221B · Answer

I think Option B means - the duration of the flight when it says the length of the flight, and not actually the length of flight?

Is that correct?  Bunuel   KarishmaB  ; Otherwise, I don't understand the solution here.

KarishmaB · Answer

It is the miles covered, not duration though we can expect them to vary directly assuming an average speed an aircraft maintains. But in this question, length is certainly miles.

RPM is sum of all  No of miles  * no of people. That is what has increased. If flights become longer RPM increases.

egmat · Answer

I can see why this paradox question can confuse students – you've got revenue passenger miles  increasing  while both load factor and number of flights are  decreasing . Let's work through this together and figure out what's really going on.

Understanding the Paradox

First, let's break down what revenue passenger miles actually means. The passage tells us it's calculated as:

Revenue Passenger Miles = (Number of flights) × (Paying passengers per flight) × (Miles per flight)

Now here's what we know:
 
 Revenue passenger miles:  INCREASED  
 Number of flights:  DECREASED  
 Load factor (% of seats filled):  DECREASED

Notice that if load factor decreased, that means fewer passengers per flight. So we have  fewer flights  with  fewer passengers  on each flight, yet somehow the total passenger miles went  up . That's our paradox!

Finding the Resolution

Let's think about this logically. If two components of our formula are going down (flights and passengers), the only way the total can still increase is if the  third component  increases significantly enough to compensate. What's the third component? The  miles per flight .

Let me show you with a simple example:

Scenario 1 (Previous Year): 
100 flights × 80 passengers × 1,000 miles = 8,000,000 passenger miles

Scenario 2 (This Year): 
80 flights × 60 passengers × 2,000 miles = 9,600,000 passenger miles

See what happened? Even though we have fewer flights (100 → 80) and fewer passengers per flight (80 → 60), the longer flight distances (1,000 → 2,000 miles) more than compensated, resulting in higher total passenger miles.

Evaluating the Answer Choices

(A) Average passenger capacity decreased  – This makes the paradox worse! Smaller planes mean even fewer available seats, and with a declining load factor, we'd have even fewer passengers. This doesn't help explain the increase.

(B) Average length of flights increased  – Bingo! This is exactly what we need. Longer flights directly increase the "miles per flight" component, which can more than offset the decreases in number of flights and passengers per flight.

(C) Increase in delays  – Delays don't change the calculation at all. Whether a flight is on time or delayed, the distance flown and number of paying passengers remain the same for our passenger miles formula.

(D) Increase in nonpaying passengers  – The key word in "revenue passenger miles" is  revenue . This metric only counts  paying  passengers. More nonpaying passengers doesn't help our calculation and doesn't resolve the paradox.

(E) Fares became more expensive  – Fare prices are completely irrelevant to passenger miles. This metric is purely about distance × passengers, not dollar amounts.

The Answer: B

The increase in average flight length perfectly explains how Ranger Airways could have higher revenue passenger miles despite having fewer flights operating at lower capacity. They shifted to longer routes, and each passenger mile on those longer flights adds to the total.

---

While this explanation walks you through the core logic, understanding the  systematic framework for resolving paradoxes  and recognizing the  common patterns in Critical Reasoning paradox questions  will help you tackle similar questions more efficiently. You can check out the  complete step-by-step solution on Neuron by e-GMAT  to master the pre-thinking strategy for paradox questions and learn how to quickly identify which answer choices to eliminate. You can also explore other GMAT official Critical Reasoning questions with detailed solutions on Neuron for structured practice  here .

Hope this helps! 😊

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