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"I traversed down the state tree until I found the allAirportsList property, which contained all the airport keys and the locations to which they flew. I extrac
by 3xblah 7y ago
"I traversed down the state tree until I found the allAirportsList property, which contained all the airport keys and the locations to which they flew. I extracted this state (over 1MB of route information) and could now build a graph representation of airport connections."
In the 90's, I can remember a pocket-sized, printed guide by a company called OAG. I used to call it "the OAG Guide". I can remember getting a copy of this for free. It listed every schedule for every route for every airline. I can also remember getting similar pocket-sized guides from certain airlines listing all their routes and schedules for each route.
When the task of planning routes comes up, I sometimes think of those old printed guides and wonder if this could be cited as an example where certain information was actually more easily accessible before the www became popular than after.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAG_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAG_(company)
- notahacker 7y agotbf, you'd need a lot of time on your hands to do what the OP did with a paper guide. If you just want to know 'can I go to Paris and Brussels and back to Venice again in three flights' you can do that with three queries on Ryanair's website, which is actually less painful than battling through the upsell screens you'll be greeted with when you come to buy the tickets, never mind booking with their callcentre in the nineties... And if you wanted to analyse large numbers of routes for business purposes then back in the nineties, you'd have probably found it easier to buy OAG's analyser tool or an airline spreadsheet file than digitise thousands of route pairs from a paper timetable, which you can still do if you don't want to write a scraper.
- 3xblah 7y agoDo the paper timetables even exist anymore? I never tried to "analyse large numbers of routes for business purposes" using those free printed guides, but I did use them sometimes when planning trips, real or imaginary. Rather than "can I go to Paris and Brussels and back to Venice again in three flights" what I wanted to know was "what airlines fly between cities 1, 2, 3, etc. and what are all of departure and arrival times for the flights they have on those routes." Today I might use that information when deciding what to price information I want to scrape. I wonder if today there is a digital source of that information, free for public access. Probably not.
- angott 7y agoBased on my experience in Italy, Lufthansa offices still offer free copies at the ticketing counter. I’m not too sure how many people buy tickets at the airport nowadays, let alone do so with a paper timetable, but they are still there! :-)
- reaperducer 7y agoI’m not too sure how many people buy tickets at the airport nowadays Many people. Mostly business people who need to be somewhere on short notice. Until very recently, my wife was in this group.
- cperciva 7y agoIf you need to travel on short notice, isn't it faster to book online rather than lining up at the airport? Or does the airport ticketing desk have a later cutoff time?
- nabraham 7y agoSometimes not and yes. Online ticket purchases are routed through a protocol which has an earlier cut off time after which the ticket is in “airport control” and purchased or changes happen in-person. https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/111197/what-does-it-mean-when-a-ticket-is-under-airport-control https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/111197/what-does-...
- reaperducer 7y agoIf you need to travel on short notice, isn't it faster to book online rather than lining up at the airport? In her situation, no. The phone would ring at 5am, she'd get dressed and grab her "go" bag and walk down to the subway, then buys her ticket (usually one-way) at the airport counter. In theory she could try to book tickets on her phone on the train, but connectivity can be iffy on the train, and buying an expensive airline ticket is not the sort of thing you want to take unnecessary chances with. (Think double-purchases, false purchases, etc...)
- reaperducer 7y agoI used to call it "the OAG Guide". The official name was "Official Airline Guide," and it was considered an indispensable part of any office. It first went online as OAGEE (Official Airline Guide Electronic Edition) on CompuServe. It was a massive driver of business accounts to CompuServe, and I believe the first place the average Joe could book airline tickets online. Then the internet happened...
- 3xblah 7y agoAside from the cost of CompuServe, OAGEE was free?
- reaperducer 7y agoI really don't remember. CompuServe did have some content that you had to pay extra for, but that mostly came later, and I believe OAGEE was available at or very close to launch.