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Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

blog.jonlu.ca

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Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#41

Post by ljcn »

seszett wrote: post #32
whazor wrote: post #19

We (me and friend) are working on the same problem, however we are stuck at the next step. Namely the user interface: how do you let the user search through all the possibilities. We created some data structures that allow almost instant searching of such routes and we have scrapers running regularly on Ryanair, easyJet, wizzair, and Transavia. You can query the algorithm here: https://algo.tripchemy.com/routes/TSF?y…

What I've been missing is not so much finding the best routes between two airports, but finding the best (ie. least expensive) route from a bunch of departure airports to a number of destination airports. If I'm in Antwerp, I really don't care much if I have to depart from/return to Brussels Zaventem, Charleroi or Eindhoven, it just doesn't matter. And if the fare is sufficiently cheaper, then Amsterdam, Düsseldorf,…

It's not perfect but skyscanner.net does the first part of your description. I just did some test searches from Eindhoven + nearby airports, and it found routes starting in EIN, BRU, CRL, and ANR. By default it shows different take-off/landing airports.

Edit: kayak performs the same.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#43

Post by werber »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #22
crikli wrote: post #4

Off-topic but related: https://scottscheapflights.com is _amazing_. The Premium sub is worth every penny...my wife and I will be doing a ton more overseas travel in 2019 purely because of the deals this site finds.

For a typical overseas trip, how does your (ordinary, non-discounted) airfare generally compare to your food and boarding expenses?

You don't book with Scott's Cheap Flights, it's just an e-mail that says what is on sale and the best way to book. I haven't had any issues not getting a meal or being charged for bags on an international flight using their tips

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#44

Post by ddalex »

jonluca wrote: post #37
shoyer wrote: post #8

This article misses the most obvious way to visualize this graph: put it on a map!

I actually wanted to do that but thought the cost/benefit wasn't high enough - I'd pretty much need to manually place all the airports information on the map if I wanted to use the library I was using (Cytoscape). Visualizing the DFS at the last step was good enough :) Maybe in the future!

you don't need to do that - just download https://openflights.org/data.html, and plot airport x/y to airport lat/lon directly. Since you're doing only Europe, you don't need to do the sin/cos math do get an accurate projection

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#45

Post by wfn »

whazor wrote: post #19

We (me and friend) are working on the same problem, however we are stuck at the next step. Namely the user interface: how do you let the user search through all the possibilities. We created some data structures that allow almost instant searching of such routes and we have scrapers running regularly on Ryanair, easyJet, wizzair, and Transavia. You can query the algorithm here: https://algo.tripchemy.com/routes/TSF?y…

Nice. Maybe check out Azuon (they provide a .net app (eugh; sorta runs under wine, though)) - an annual paid service I gladly pay for. It has two interface modes:

- the basic mode allows you to provide sets of origin and destination locations / countries / airports, and a range of dates; gives you results with direct and transfer flights (including all those ryanair+wizzair/easyjet/another-ryanair combos, etc.) and so on - check out how the interface looks like;

- advanced mode allows you to specify multiple hops, with time intervals / date ranges for how long you want to stay at those hops.

If someone were to provide a (paid, etc.) service and some decent platform-agnostic interface (for me personally, an API would do, too:), that'd be super amazing.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#46

Post by micahgoulart »

crikli wrote: post #4

Off-topic but related: https://scottscheapflights.com is _amazing_. The Premium sub is worth every penny...my wife and I will be doing a ton more overseas travel in 2019 purely because of the deals this site finds.

I got into churning airline miles then manufactured spending (generating spend on credit card to earn miles) and now have over 10 million miles. I also heard one of the biggest groups of manufactured spend are developers within Google.

I belong to a private slack with over 80 folks doing this as a hobby so we can do first class/business class international travel and hotel stays for free.

If anyone is into it as as well and would like to join a private Slack and contribute, hit me up. A big majority of the group are engineers.

NOTE: this group is for advanced folks only who have been doing this for a while. Think "r/churning level 2"

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#47

Post by whazor »

aembleton wrote: post #36
whazor wrote: post #19

We (me and friend) are working on the same problem, however we are stuck at the next step. Namely the user interface: how do you let the user search through all the possibilities. We created some data structures that allow almost instant searching of such routes and we have scrapers running regularly on Ryanair, easyJet, wizzair, and Transavia. You can query the algorithm here: https://algo.tripchemy.com/routes/TSF?y…

How do you determine the score? Is it just niceness of airports? How do you get that information?

ELO rating with A/B per airport where some friends got some information per location.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#49

Post by wastedhours »

werber wrote: post #43
thaumasiotes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a typical overseas trip, how does your (ordinary, non-discounted) airfare generally compare to your food and boarding expenses?

You don't book with Scott's Cheap Flights, it's just an e-mail that says what is on sale and the best way to book. I haven't had any issues not getting a meal or being charged for bags on an international flight using their tips

My assumption is the OP was talking about "food and boarding expenses" in the context of your hotel and food when you reach your destination - e.g. how much is saving on your airfare worth it vs optimising your hotel price.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#50

Post by mothsonasloth »

micahgoulart wrote: post #46
crikli wrote: post #4

Off-topic but related: https://scottscheapflights.com is _amazing_. The Premium sub is worth every penny...my wife and I will be doing a ton more overseas travel in 2019 purely because of the deals this site finds.

I got into churning airline miles then manufactured spending (generating spend on credit card to earn miles) and now have over 10 million miles. I also heard one of the biggest groups of manufactured spend are developers within Google. I belong to a private slack with over 80 folks doing this as a hobby so we can do first class/business class international travel and hotel stays for free. If anyone is into it as as w…

I would be interested but I am in the UK, not the US
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