Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

partow.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 44 posts

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#11

Post by phsource »

I can't stress just how important (and how hard) it is to get a great source of data for airports, so kudos on the work! When building All the Flight Deals (https://alltheflightdeals.com) and BookWithMatrix (https://bookwithmatrix.com), airport data was essential.

It seems like your database covers the basics! However, timezone data and airport type/size were pretty important information for us, so we ended up getting these from:

- OpenFlights [1]: this dataset was great since it had timezone too, which was really helpful for calculating flight lengths, etc.

- OurAirports [2]: no timezone here, but the "type" and "scheduled_service" columns in this dataset are essential. "Type" lets you distinguish between small/medium/large airports, and "scheduled_service" lets you easily filter out airports without real flights (which you often might not care about).

- IATA tzmap [3]: this was used for filling in timezone data and is derived from the Geonames database.

- Random other GitHub Gist [4]: I have no idea where this data comes from, but it was surprisingly complete and has a few golden nuggets like "num_flights" and "runway_length" in addition to "timezone". The presence of a "woeid" suggests Yahoo-related origins, but it's hard to be sure.

Long story short, it'd be AWESOME to have one complete, updated database with all this data in one place, but part of the struggle is definitely having more data than just longitude/latitude.

[1] https://github.com/jpatokal/openflights/

[2] http://ourairports.com/data/

[3] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hroptatyr/dateutils/tzmaps...; http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/

[4] https://gist.github.com/tdreyno/4278655

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#12

Post by psergeant »

phsource wrote: post #11

I can't stress just how important (and how hard) it is to get a great source of data for airports, so kudos on the work! When building All the Flight Deals ( https://alltheflightdeals.com ) and BookWithMatrix ( https://bookwithmatrix.com ), airport data was essential. It seems like your database covers the basics! However, timezone data and airport type/size were pretty important information for us, so we ended up ge…

I’d love someone to finish my tool that would semi-randomly query Matrix and find “interesting” business class flights, where interesting is a ratio between price and either distance or tier points / eqm / airmiles earned.

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#13

Post by jpatokal »

jka wrote: post #9

OpenFlights also has great data[0] here - and not just for airports, but also train stations, airline/carrier codes, and routes (i.e. origin/destination pairs with a carrier). No sign of schedules from them yet, but there's been a request-for-interest on the site regarding those for a few years now. [0] - https://openflights.org/data.html

OpenFlights maintainer here. Thanks for the kudos, although our airport data is primarily from OurAirports.com these days.

Re: schedules, I've finally got a good lead on a way to obtain data without relying on the OAG/Innovata duopoly. Stay tuned.

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#14

Post by jpatokal »

edshiro wrote: post #7

Great stuff! I was working on a project where we needed a database of all airports around the world. I used http://ourairports.com/data/ IIRC. Out of curiosity, what's different in your project? Also, would be good to add the type of airport (e.g. airfield, airport, etc.). Best of luck!

Came here to post this: OurAirports seems to be much more comprehensive, does GADB have any advantage over this? Also, where is GADB's data sources from?

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#15

Post by edpichler »

stevekemp wrote: post #10
fludlight wrote: post #5

Anyone have a free/inexpensive source for regularly updated airport pairs for scheduled airline flights?

If you're only interested in "local" data then you might be able to obtain it via a software radio. I have a cheap USB receiver hooked up to my PC so I can watch the aircraft "overhead" in real-time. Annoyingly it loses the signal when the aircraft get too low, so I cannot see them landing.

Very interesting, do you have a blog post about this?

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#16

Post by scrollaway »

phsource wrote: post #11

I can't stress just how important (and how hard) it is to get a great source of data for airports, so kudos on the work! When building All the Flight Deals ( https://alltheflightdeals.com ) and BookWithMatrix ( https://bookwithmatrix.com ), airport data was essential. It seems like your database covers the basics! However, timezone data and airport type/size were pretty important information for us, so we ended up ge…

I found out about http://www.flightconnections.com/ a couple of weeks ago when a friend linked it to me. It looks like it has fairly exhaustive data on airports including all the airports they connect to, which the OP doesn't have. However, it is lacking on everything else :)

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#17

Post by ryandrake »

phsource wrote: post #11

I can't stress just how important (and how hard) it is to get a great source of data for airports, so kudos on the work! When building All the Flight Deals ( https://alltheflightdeals.com ) and BookWithMatrix ( https://bookwithmatrix.com ), airport data was essential. It seems like your database covers the basics! However, timezone data and airport type/size were pretty important information for us, so we ended up ge…

Don’t forget that time zone boundaries often change, so if you are going to store a “time zone” field, make sure you regularly update them.

You are right about the lack of availability of complete airport data. This is true for many things aviation related, including airspace boundaries, navigation aids, etc. Basically anything you would find on a pilot’s chart. The USA is a wonderful exception as they publish a great deal of info digitally and for free, but this is not true for most other countries. Many countries cartographic offices (or their private contractors) even claim copyright over basic facts like “airport ABC is at location X” and “navaid DEF transmits on frequency 123”. It’s crazy that information that potentially could save lives are locked up behind rent extracting corporations and intellectual property laws.

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#18

Post by FabHK »

This is a small sample of airports; would be interesting to know how they were selected.

> airports big and small from all around the world

Well, presumably mostly big.

The CIA Facebook shows 13500 airports for the USA alone, and 6 countries with more than 1000 [0]. So, when you count smaller airports (potentially untowered, or unpaved runways), there is way more than what's listed here.

Most countries (ICAO members) maintain an AIP (Aeronautical Information Publication, [1]) which lists the bigger airports in a country (and definitely the international ones with immigration and customs facilities) in part AD (aerodromes) and is often readily downloadable from the pertinent national civil aviation authority [2].

However, information on smaller airfields is often quite hard to come by.

I've flown small airplanes around in southern Africa and Thailand, and relied on websites, books, and aviation clubs to find coordinates for airfields. See eg. the Airfields Directory of Southern Africa [3] or Tom Claytor's list at the bottom of the Thai Flying Club website [4].

[0] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeronautical_Information_Publi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civil_aviation_authori...

[3] http://www.cometaviationsupplies.co.za/index.php?route=produ...

[4] http://www.thaiflyingclub.com

EDIT: typos, clarity

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#19

Post by marsRoverDev »

scrollaway wrote: post #16
phsource wrote: post #11

I can't stress just how important (and how hard) it is to get a great source of data for airports, so kudos on the work! When building All the Flight Deals ( https://alltheflightdeals.com ) and BookWithMatrix ( https://bookwithmatrix.com ), airport data was essential. It seems like your database covers the basics! However, timezone data and airport type/size were pretty important information for us, so we ended up ge…

I found out about http://www.flightconnections.com/ a couple of weeks ago when a friend linked it to me. It looks like it has fairly exhaustive data on airports including all the airports they connect to, which the OP doesn't have. However, it is lacking on everything else :)

Where do these guys get their data from?

Re: Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World

#20

Post by marsRoverDev »

jpatokal wrote: post #13
jka wrote: post #9

OpenFlights also has great data[0] here - and not just for airports, but also train stations, airline/carrier codes, and routes (i.e. origin/destination pairs with a carrier). No sign of schedules from them yet, but there's been a request-for-interest on the site regarding those for a few years now. [0] - https://openflights.org/data.html

OpenFlights maintainer here. Thanks for the kudos, although our airport data is primarily from OurAirports.com these days. Re: schedules, I've finally got a good lead on a way to obtain data without relying on the OAG/Innovata duopoly. Stay tuned.

I am super interested in that final point of yours. Any more details you can share?

Also, I owe you a beer in real life for enabling my app to exist.

Post reply on HN