1. A certain airline has 10 flights a day from N.Y. to Chicago. From chicago there are 8 flights a day to L.A. Can you conclude that there are 80 possible ways to book a flight from N.Y. to L.A. via chicago? Explain

There would be AT MOST 80 such connections.

But not very likely.
What is the flight leaves Chicago before a flight arrives from NY ?

They don't say

To conclude the number of possible ways to book a flight from New York (NY) to Los Angeles (LA) via Chicago, we need to multiply the number of flights from NY to Chicago with the number of flights from Chicago to LA.

Given that there are 10 flights a day from NY to Chicago and 8 flights a day from Chicago to LA, we can apply the multiplication rule of counting:

Number of ways = Number of flights from NY to Chicago * Number of flights from Chicago to LA

Number of ways = 10 * 8 = 80

Therefore, we can conclude that there are 80 possible ways to book a flight from NY to LA via Chicago.