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Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

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11–20 of 73 posts

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#11
Hipmunk's visualization is pretty badass... BUT it's one airport to one airport.

If you could draw lines from each starting point to each ending point with a price range of the flights available then you are solving a different problem.

You are visualizing that the trip from Tampa to Hawaii could be much cheaper if I drove to Orlando. If that 2 hour drive saves me $500 per ticket then it might be worth it.

Just a thought.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#12
post #10

This is great. Nobody ever travels from airport to airport, yet every flight search engine insists that you enter departure and destination airport names instead of places you actually want to go to. How am I supposed to know what airports are nearby a place I've never been before?

FWIW, Orbitz will allow you to search for flights by city names rather than airport codes. I'm not sure how it decides what airports serve a given city, though.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#13
post #11

Hipmunk's visualization is pretty badass... BUT it's one airport to one airport. If you could draw lines from each starting point to each ending point with a price range of the flights available then you are solving a different problem. You are visualizing that the trip from Tampa to Hawaii could be much cheaper if I drove to Orlando. If that 2 hour drive saves me $500 per ticket then it might be worth it. Just a tho…

If I were to pick it up again, that would be the plan. However, the big roadblock is that the data for times and prices if very very expensive. And I simply don't have the resources to pay for it.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#15
I hate 'me too' comments, but this is where I'll jump in - I think it's a great idea, and would have saved me a lot of browsing/googling. Especially useful when you go to less explored areas in Europe, say East Europe, that have unknown airports, unknown airlines. Possibly two features to add on once the service is up: - Search for connecting flights - Have an option to select all airports within X miles.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#16
Pretty much completely off topic, but Bassano del Grappa was the first place I went in Italy the first time I came here. Beautiful town and a nice area, with the mountains to the north, and the plains of the Veneto to the south.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#17
post #16

Pretty much completely off topic, but Bassano del Grappa was the first place I went in Italy the first time I came here. Beautiful town and a nice area, with the mountains to the north, and the plains of the Veneto to the south.

I lived there for 4 years, which is when I started work on FlightM8. It's the only place other than New Zealand that's ever felt like home.

I miss it a lot. I'm off for a visit there this weekend however, which should be nice.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#18
Good one! Like the idea. The UI needs some hard thinking but for a prototype it's very good. If you had a vision to actually make this happen and include all other transport options I think you wouldn't have too much trouble finding someone to throw money your way.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#19
post #15

I hate 'me too' comments, but this is where I'll jump in - I think it's a great idea, and would have saved me a lot of browsing/googling. Especially useful when you go to less explored areas in Europe, say East Europe, that have unknown airports, unknown airlines. Possibly two features to add on once the service is up: - Search for connecting flights - Have an option to select all airports within X miles.

There's a half baked feature in development at the time I shelved this to find connecting flights with any airline. The hope was that backpackers (for example) could plan cheap flights around the world, flying from say the UK to Australia with budget airlines all the way.

Re: Ask HN: My side project. Is it useful?

#20
post #16

Pretty much completely off topic, but Bassano del Grappa was the first place I went in Italy the first time I came here. Beautiful town and a nice area, with the mountains to the north, and the plains of the Veneto to the south.

I lived there for 4 years, which is when I started work on FlightM8. It's the only place other than New Zealand that's ever felt like home. I miss it a lot. I'm off for a visit there this weekend however, which should be nice.

Stop by and say hi in Padova some time. Always up for a spritz/pizza/whatever.

Well, almost always; we just bought a new house here and it's a load of work. Send email though, and I'll see what we can do if you're ever in the area.

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