Arnold: I was recently denied a seat on an airline flight for which I had a confirmed reservation, because the airlin...

SamA on April 7, 2020

Hello @gharibiannick,

I agree! That question stem is very wordy. Let's break it down. "A principle that, if established, justifies Jamie's response to Arnold..." This part tells us whose side we are on. We want to justify Jamie's response. In other words, we want to confirm that the airline doesn't owe Arnold a thing.

What about the rest of the question stem? It just gives us the first part of our principle. An airline is obligated to compensate a passenger who has been denied a seat on a flight if...

We want to say that Arnold should not receive compensation. So we are going to start with the first half of our principle, and we need to limit it so that Arnold is not included. What are the specifics of Arnold's situation? Even if he had been on the original flight, it was canceled and he would have missed the meeting. This is our key to excluding him from compensation. Technically, bumping him from the first flight didn't cause him to miss his meeting. It would have happened anyway.

Take a look at answer choice C.
Compensation -----> would not have had to take a later flight

We know that Arnold would have had to take a later flight regardless. This gives us our contrapositive, and our desired result.

would have had to take a later flight ----> not compensation

For me, the key was the word "only." This is a good way to limit a principle. I was looking for a necessary condition for compensation that Arnold did not meet. This is why C is correct. This is a difficult question, so do not be discouraged.

Remember, on justification questions, we want a strong principle that guarantees the conclusion.