Some holiday statistics and economics from the WSJ Numbers Guy:
My print column this week considers oft-reported claims that Thanksgiving spurs the consumption of 46 million turkeys and the busiest travel period of the year. Both claims appear to be contradicted by government data.
Turkeys:
... But that [46 million turkeys] estimate was based on projected turkey purchases throughout November — much like a questionable stat about avocados consumed on Super Bowl Sunday turned out to be based on a two-week period.
... The turkey federation said that the average weight of a Thanksgiving turkey is 15 pounds. That’s two and a quarter pounds for every man, woman and child — more considering all the people who eschew meat, or prefer a different holiday meat. Even after accounting for discarded fat and bone, and leftovers, that’s a lot of per-capita giblet.
Travel:
Airlines develop sophisticated forecasting systems to decide how much to charge for flights and how to staff them. These have helped airlines maximize revenue per passenger, especially during predictable travel times such as this week, according to Peter Belobaba, program manager of the Global Airline Industry Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That meant tickets got much more expensive on the peak travel days, which may in turn have helped spread air travel more uniformly around Thanksgiving. “As airlines got better at extracting revenue, the natural effect was that other passengers, if they had the option, were able to search out lower fares on adjacent days,” Prof. Belobaba said.
