It was a long-awaited vacation for Sara, a frequent traveler who had planned every detail of her trip meticulously. She boarded her flight with high hopes, ready to embrace the journey ahead. Yet, her excitement slowly faded as she experienced long delays, cramped seating, and unresponsive service. By the time she landed, her mood had shifted from excitement to frustration. Across the aisle, however, another passenger was smiling, delighted by the in-flight entertainment and exceptional service.
Why do these vastly different experiences occur on the same flight? What makes one passenger satisfied while another feels let down? This project dives into the complex factors influencing airline passenger satisfaction, shedding light on what truly matters to travelers and how airlines can improve their services to win customer loyalty.
Key Insights from the Analysis
Using a dataset of 129,880 airline passengers from the United States, our team explored how various flight experience factors, demographics, and service attributes contribute to overall passenger satisfaction. Here’s what we discovered:
Passenger Satisfaction Trends: A significant portion of passengers (57%) fall into the “neutral or dissatisfied” category. This indicates a substantial opportunity for improvement in airline services.
Factors with the Largest Impact:
Online boarding, in-flight entertainment, seat comfort, and cleanliness emerged as the top drivers of passenger satisfaction.
Features like gate location and departure/arrival time convenience had minimal impact on satisfaction scores.
Demographic Insights:
Smaller-aged passengers (0 – 18 years) reported higher dissatisfaction compared to other age groups.
Economy-class and Economy Plus passengers expressed higher dissatisfaction compared to business travelers.
Gender did not have an impact on satisfaction as both genders showed similar satisfaction rates.
Data-Driven Recommendations for Airlines
Prioritize High-Impact Areas: Investments in online boarding, seat comfort, cleanliness, and in-flight entertainment could significantly reduce dissatisfaction.
Focus on Specific Demographics: Tailor services for smaller-aged passengers and first-time flyers, as these groups are more prone to dissatisfaction.
Continuous Monitoring: Establish feedback loops to adapt and evolve service offerings based on passenger needs.
How We Presented Our Findings
To communicate these findings effectively, we developed interactive dashboards showcasing correlations, demographic breakdowns, and feature impact analyses. These visualizations are accessible below and allow stakeholders to interact with the data, exploring insights in greater detail.
Our interactive dashboard and accompanying visuals can guide airline executives in making data-informed decisions to elevate passenger satisfaction levels and foster loyalty in a competitive market.
Looking Ahead
The airline industry thrives on customer trust and satisfaction. By addressing these key areas and continuously refining their services, airlines can not only enhance the passenger experience but also gain a competitive edge. Let’s use these insights to revolutionize the passenger experience! Whether you’re an airline executive, a policy maker, or a data enthusiast, join us in transforming these findings into actionable strategies. Share your thoughts, collaborate on solutions, and let’s redefine what exceptional air travel looks like.
Lebanon’s university students, known for their determination and aspirations, are now enduring a convergence of unprecedented crises that have left their academic progress and mental health in jeopardy. The cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the devastating Beirut port explosion, and the ongoing war has created a precarious situation where the resilience of Lebanon’s youth is being tested.
Recent data highlights the toll these overlapping challenges have taken on students’ educational and emotional well-being. The shift to online learning during COVID-19 disrupted traditional academic structures, and the Beirut explosion further shattered stability with lasting trauma. Now, the ongoing war has introduced new levels of stress, displacing families, straining resources, and exacerbating financial difficulties. University closures and unstable learning environments have compounded the problem, with students reporting reduced engagement, declining academic performance, and heightened anxiety.
Quantitative indicators provide a stark picture. Stress levels among students have soared to unprecedented heights, with most reporting severe psychological distress. GPA trends illustrate a notable decline, underscoring the strong link between mental health challenges and academic outcomes. Qualitative feedback from surveys and interviews reveals a growing sense of hopelessness and the pressing need for institutional support.
To address these challenges, Lebanon’s educational institutions must adopt both short-term and long-term strategies. Immediate measures could include offering remote mental health counseling, implementing flexible grading policies, and ensuring access to academic resources for displaced students. Longer-term solutions might involve building resilient support networks, integrating mental health resources into the academic framework, and fostering partnerships with NGOs and global organizations.
Global examples, such as post-conflict recovery initiatives in other countries, highlight the importance of coordinated action to safeguard students’ academic and emotional well-being during crises. For Lebanon’s youth, who are the foundation of the country’s future, creating a stable and supportive academic environment is not just an educational necessity, it is a moral imperative.
Chess, through history, has been used to determine someone’s intelligence; it has been used geopolitically in 1972 when the famous American Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky from the USSR, signaling Western intelligence over Eastern one. Not only that, it was also the first time humanity was in danger from computers, after the fatal defeat of Gary Kasparov in 1996 vs. IBM Deep Blue, where many thought it was the end of humanity. But what if I tell you this game that has existed for more than 1500 years can also teach us about human psychology?
In our project, we decided to tackle multiple aspects of human behavior, by what and how it is affected, drawing some conclusions and hypotheses from the data collected (source: Lichess). For anyone who would like to see the complete visuals with a story. And if someone wants to familiarize with some chess terms please check the last paragraph.
1) What factors contributes to mistakes made during the game :
First, we studied the relationship between mistakes and different time formats. What was astonishing is that players tend to make almost the same amount of mistakes across all time formats even though they use more time in longer time formats.
This drew the obvious question: if we humans won’t perform better with more time, what factor would influence our results? Apparently, after studying the relationship between mistakes and Elo (players strength in chess), the higher the Elo of a player, the fewer mistakes he tends to make, dropping by a whopping 50% between the weakest and strongest category. This highlighted a key finding in our project: Expertise is attained by the number of hours and training we have, instead of the additional time given to think more.
2) Mental psychology in chess :
The other aspect we wanted to tackle is mental psychology. We want to see how probable a comeback is. We looked at the number of players that tend to win a game after having a piece disadvantage (which in chess is a big enough advantage); we found out that 37% of players who were first losing could turn the tables around by winning (25% of the time) or making a draw (12% of the time).
After these findings, we wanted to determine the percentage of resignation by Elo categories. Surprisingly enough, higher-rated players resign twice as much as their counterparts.
Aren’t we taught in chess and in real life to never give up? Then how do these successful players resign more while staying in the top 5%? After further examination, we discovered that stronger players tend to play more moves, meaning that they fight on average more than the average player. Resignation is just a sign of respect for their opponent, when they know that their situation is hopeless.
3) Time adaptability and the punishment of overthinking:
Another dimension was the average thinking time for each player and its consequences. After examining the longest think during the game, we found out that, on average, 35% of the time, players tend to use the mostamount of time only to end up making an inaccuracy or a mistake! This shows that in every game there is a 70% chance that one player will overthink his move and make a bad move:
“The more you overthink, the less you will understand.” ~ Habeeb Akande.
The second finding showed that higher-rated players are more adaptable; if given more time, they use it wisely, almost 3 times more than the lowest categories. But when rushed, they tend to use the least amount, knowing well that they should move fast, relying on their intuition and decision-making skills.
4) The consequences of low endurance:
In the final part we examined the effect of fatigue. We found out that games that tend to last longer, (above 300 sec) tend to have the most mistakes.We thought this was because of players’ endurance; they tend to be more tired the longer the game lasts; nonetheless, this could be due to other factors such as time pressure!
In addition, we studied the effects of different phases of the game, the opening is where players tend to make the least mistakes; they usually make more mistakes during the middlegame; finally the endgame is where players tend to have the most amount of mistakes, which is another evidence that this could be due to a lack of endurance, or it could be simply that we are more careful in the beginning than the ending.
“If you are as careful at the end as you are at the beginning, there will be no failure.” ~ Lao Tzu
Conclusion:
To conclude, chess is not simply a game, a war over the board, but it is a history of human beings, something that connects us with our inner selves. Whether you are chess enthusiasts or someone who has never considered the game, we cannot deny its teaching us the complexities of human psychology.
We demonstrated that expertise is about the training that we need, how to always fight because there’s always a chance, the effect of overthinking on our decisions, and how we human beings tend to make less optimal decisions when tired.
Further investigation, lead us to find out that when a stronger player competes against a weaker one, the later spend 44% more time thinking.
Is this due to stress and underconfidence from the weaker player? Or is it simply because the other is just stronger, forcing the opponent to think more? But what we know for sure is that the next time you see some pieces of wood moving on a 8 by 8 square, it might be a game, but also it might be chess.
Familiarizing ourselves with some chess terms:
This part just covers some basic introductory to chess and terms that are used through out the project. First, achess game can end by time forfeit, which means one of the players has run out of time. Or mate, it’s when a player checkmates the other, meaning he won in chess terms. Draw is when neither player has clearly won the game and finally resignation is when a player decides that his situation is hopeless and won’t continue playing.
Time formats which are classical typically a game is around 20 mins for each player, rapid 10 mins, blitz isaround 5 mins and bullet between 1-2 mins.
Elo indicates a player’s strength, the bigger the number the stronger a player is with 1400-1600 category having the biggest player base.
That’s the Number of People Around the World who Use Social Media Platforms—5,169,999,998 and Counting!
Regardless of the time we spend or the platforms we use, social media has become a natural part of our lives and thus affects us in a way or another. Therefore, it’s only logical to get some exposure about how the general public uses social media and in what forms it affects us. In this post, we’ll discuss social media usage patterns and its effects both on mental health and sleep patterns. Hopefully, by the end of this, we’ll get a general sense of what we as individuals can do to prevent the associated side effects.
To understand social media usage, its impact on mental health, and sleep patterns among Lebanese young adults, we conducted a survey titled How Does Social Media Affect Your Mental Health and Sleep? The survey collects information about Demographics, Media Consumption Habits, Mental Health, and Sleep Patterns. Through these categories, the study aims to shed light on the potential correlations between social media habits and well-being, especially during this period of heightened uncertainty.
Did You Know? You Might Spend Over 3 Years of Your Life on Social Media
A shocking statistic indicates that a considerable amount of respondents spend 6-10 hours a day on social media. Over a lifetime, this adds up to 15 years spent on screens—assuming someone starts at age 15 and lives to 75. That’s a significant chunk of life devoted to scrolling! Such prolonged usage often goes unnoticed, but its cumulative effects can impact mental health, productivity, and even personal relationships.
Most social media users tend to spend their time online during the evening and late at night, which reflects a shift toward using social media as a means of unwinding after a busy day, but it also raises concerns about how late-night scrolling could affect sleep patterns, we’ll observe that at a later stage.
When it comes to content, political and local news dominate the types of information consumed, followed by global events, entertainment, and health updates, this indicates that the majority of respondents are constantly concerned of the current events throughout their day. And while staying informed is valuable, the overwhelming focus on political and local issues can cause stress. As users, we must be mindful of the information we consume and how it affects our emotional well-being. Social media can be a powerful tool for learning and connection, but only if we balance its usage.
Overwhelmed by the News? How Negative Headlines Are Taking a Toll on Your Wellbeing
The majority of respondents admit to taking breaks from consuming news due to its negative impact on their mood, indicating that they are overwhelmed by what they’re experiencing, we are interested to know more details about the feelings associated with this. It turns out that the feelings of stress, sadness, and impaired concentration— reported as the most common emotional responses to social media— are one of the causes of such discomfort, which when coupled with the widely consumed form of news (political and local news) gives a clear evidence on the existence of a feedback loop where consuming stressing news creates negative emotions, which in turn diminishes our ability to concentrate and process information effectively.
In addition, users perceive news as burdensome, unsafe, and addictive, which underscores how many users feel trapped in a cycle of negative content. The fact that “relaxing” ranked the lowest among descriptors reveals news consumed are affecting users’ wellbeing. Social media’s focus emotional stories is causing this perception, which leaves users drained rather than relaxed or entertained. This begs for an action we must take: rather than passively consuming whatever is presented, we should actively seek balanced, credible sources, and most importantly, to avoid mindlessly checking the news throughout the day, but to assign specific times to do so, for example, in the afternoon or a brief amount of time. This way, we can reduce feelings of helplessness and focus on news that inform us, while going about our daily lives in a healthy manner.
Social Media and Stressful News Are Disrupting Your Sleep
The first visualization shows a clear trend: as screen time on social media increases, the likelihood of users reporting a negative impact on their sleep quality increases as well. This is especially apparent for people who spend 30 minutes or more using social media. This underscores the role of prolonged screen exposure in disturbing natural sleep cycles, likely due to overstimulation and the mental strain caused by engaging with stressing or conflict related content. For those seeking better sleep, cutting down on screen time—especially before bedtime—may the solution to get better sleep, hence improving life aspects such as productivity and mood.
The second visualization links frequent sleep disturbances with a negative perception of news consumption. Users who frequently experience disrupted sleep are more likely to report that consuming news has a negative effect on their mood and mental state. This suggests that poor sleep can heighten emotional sensitivity, making the consumption of stressful or burdensome news even more overwhelming.
Recommendations
Although social media provides benefits, it’s proving to having a toll on mental health and sleep, especially in such times of war. Poor sleep, linked to excessive screen time and negative news consumption, further compounds these issues, leaving individuals emotionally drained. In a country already facing immense pressures, mindful media consumption and digital boundaries are essential steps toward preserving mental and physical well-being. As social media users, we can prevent the symptoms we’ve mentioned by:
Limit social media use, especially before bed.
Assign specific times for checking updates to avoid overstimulation.
Follow credible, balanced sources and avoid doom-scrolling or consuming emotionally charged content excessively.
Take regular breaks, practice mindfulness, and engage in activities that promote relaxation and emotional recovery.
Lebanon, celebrated for its resilience and vibrant cultural identity, is confronting a quiet yet profound crisis: a decline in life expectancy. This vital indicator of societal well-being has been shifting alarmingly since 2019. Once a point of national pride, the decline in life expectancy now reflects deeper issues—disrupted lives, struggling families, and a healthcare system under strain. At the core of this challenge is rampant inflation, particularly affecting healthcare costs and essential sanitary products, which are indispensable to public health.
The statistics reveal the extent of the issue. Inflation has rendered basic healthcare unaffordable for countless families, pushing medications that were once accessible beyond the financial reach of even middle-class households. Hygiene standards have deteriorated as inflated costs of sanitary products add to public health challenges. UNICEF reports that over 90% of Lebanese families have faced increased medicine prices, with more than half unable to procure essential drugs. Treatable conditions are turning fatal, preventable deaths are rising, and the nation’s life expectancy is eroding as a result.
The depreciation of the Lebanese pound, which has lost 95% of its value, underscores this crisis. Importers are unable to bring in vital medications, and local pharmaceutical production has become prohibitively expensive due to rising costs of raw materials. NGOs such as the Amel Association have stepped in to provide assistance, yet their efforts are insufficient to meet the overwhelming demand. The Union of Drug Manufacturers’ decision to further increase pharmaceutical prices has only deepened the strain on households already battling economic instability.
To address these challenges, Lebanon could adopt a fixed exchange rate mechanism for pharmaceutical pricing. This solution, successfully used in countries like Turkey, separates drug prices from fluctuating currency values, ensuring affordability and stability for consumers and suppliers. Establishing a Price Evaluation Commission to periodically review and adjust the exchange rate would maintain flexibility while protecting patients from abrupt cost increases.
Turkey’s experience offers valuable lessons. By employing a fixed exchange rate for pharmaceuticals, Turkey has shielded its population from the worst impacts of currency devaluation while maintaining drug affordability. Regular rate reviews and government interventions have preserved market stability and ensured continued access to essential medications. Research highlights this approach as an effective framework for balancing affordability with adaptability, making it a viable model for Lebanon’s current economic conditions.
Lebanon’s government must act urgently to stabilize healthcare costs. Implementing a fixed exchange rate mechanism is an essential first step toward ensuring access to affordable medications. This strategy could reverse the decline in life expectancy and strengthen public health systems. The path forward is clear: stabilizing healthcare is not only an economic necessity but a moral obligation to protect Lebanon’s most vulnerable populations and secure a healthier future for all.
