frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Computational Complexity of Air Travel Planning [pdf] (2003)

http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-complexity/ITA-software-travel-complexity.pdf
76•rochoa•1y ago

Comments

buildsjets•1y ago
This is well over 20 years old and is based on pre 9/11 flight data. I would suspect that a lot has changed since then. So proceed with no caution at all.
gwern•1y ago
Since these sorts of things usually only get more and more complex over time, I would guess that it's all still true, but much more so.
throw0101b•1y ago
(2003)
throw0101b•1y ago
The PDF was produced by ITA, which famously used Common Lisp:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software

From 2001, a message from the same author as the linked paper:

> (Here's an email Carl de Marcken of ITA Software sent to a friend, describing their experiences using Lisp in one of the software industry's most demanding applications.)

* https://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html

Qem•1y ago
Are there any public, open, comprehensive datasets on flights?
dieselerator•1y ago
> Are there any public, open, comprehensive datasets on flights?

Airlines and commercial aviation operators schedule their own flights. That is a dynamic schedulle. So, perhaps there is no "comprehensive data set".

However, FlightAware makes publicly available scheduled and completed flight data over many routes in the USA. You can search by route and get a list of flights.

Flight information includes filed departure time, route of flight, and speed. For completed flights actual time, altitude, and route is shown. For example, a search on the route Dallas/Fort Worth to Austin lists 45 flights.

I hope that helps.

foundart•1y ago
A very interesting dive into, as the title says, the computational complexity of air travel planning. Graph algorithms with lots of complexity added due to the wide variety of fare conditions that airlines have dreamt up over the years.

The article may be from 2003 but I would call it an evergreen. While I imagine some of the details have changed since then, I suspect that the complexity has only grown since then.

foundart•1y ago
It makes me wonder: Would an airline that drastically simplified its fares be more likely to appear in flight search results?

Simplifying the fares would make it less computationally expensive and, in theory, could take fewer steps to answer a flight planning query.

Imagine a flight search planner that, say, fanned out N airline-specific workers when handling a planning query and then displayed to the user whatever results it got back within some time limit. If FooAir had simple fares, the FooAir searcher would likely run faster than searchers for other airlines. Thus it would be more likely to return results for more queries, assuming the deadline is fairly tight because of usability metrics. (People don't tend to stick around waiting for slow results.)

sjburt•1y ago
At least a few years ago (~2014), the fare search was actually nearly instant, but all major airfare search sites added a delay because customers had the impression they were getting a better deal when they had to wait. It seems like the delay has been dialed back lately.
teleforce•1y ago
This is a very popular article that get submitted every now and then (nearly every year) [1].

I think this kind of problem would be a very nice for logic, optimization and constraint programming that probably can be solved with modern tools like Google OR-Tool or Monash University MiniZinc [1],[2],[3].

[1] Past:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Computational%20Complexity%20o...

[2] Logic, Optimization, and Constraint Programming: A Fruitful Collaboration - John Hooker - CMU (2023) [video]:

https://www.youtube.com/live/TknN8fCQvRk

[3] Google OR-Tools:

https://developers.google.com/optimization

[4] MiniZinc:

https://www.minizinc.org/

Mistral Large 4

https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-large-4/\
1279•Philpax•6h ago•813 comments

Nobel Prize in Physics 2026: Francis Halzen

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026/
448•solarist•10h ago•145 comments

Berthd

https://berthd.app/
11•handfuloflight•59m ago•6 comments

Tapo (Rust/Python library) now speaks TP-Link's TPAP protocol

https://mihai.dinculescu.dev/posts/tapo-speaks-tpap/
107•faithraven•6h ago•47 comments

Benchmark in Milliseconds

https://matklad.github.io/2026/10/05/benchmark-milliseconds.html
98•surprisetalk•1d ago•23 comments

Gleam doesn't compile to Erlang source anymore

https://gleam.run/news/gleam-doesnt-compile-to-erlang-source-anymore/
253•ingve•12h ago•103 comments

Lawmakers Introduce Multiple Laws to Curb Flock After 404 Media Coverage

https://www.404media.co/lawmakers-introduce-multiple-laws-to-curb-flock-after-404-media-coverage/
15•awoodbeck•18m ago•0 comments

The Early History of Smalltalk (1993)

https://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/
78•_reza•4h ago•36 comments

Mathematics of Geothermal Energy

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/power-and-energy/mathematics-geothermal-energy/
56•srameshc•7h ago•25 comments

Show HN: I turned my iPhone and a $20 smart plug into an f-stop timer

https://peterszentkiralyi.eu/darkplug/
43•pentakkusu•6h ago•4 comments

Subquadratic 3SUM and Subcubic APSP

https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.06783
66•mauriziocalo•7h ago•23 comments

Polars 2.0

https://pola.rs/posts/release-polars-2/
361•simicd•8h ago•82 comments

Nature's capacity to 'bounce back' when species are lost is overestimated: study

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nature-capacity-species-lost-vastly.html
267•pseudolus•9h ago•131 comments

Beam: Reflection's 501B open-weight model

https://reflection.ai/blog/introducing-beam
526•Philpax•1d ago•164 comments

Example.com just launched the biggest redesign in decades

https://www.debugbear.com/blog/example-dot-com-redesign-history
318•jgx0•21h ago•215 comments

Show HN: Parseable, an open observability datalake, handles 100M time-series/min

https://www.parseable.com
60•yashdotrv•6h ago•13 comments

Find the flattest route between any two points in SF

https://flattensf.com/
287•ishan0102•22h ago•100 comments

AI is now capable of developing its own inference hardware

https://github.com/FeSens/openTPU
163•fsbonetto•3h ago•186 comments

Dust: Pretraining Transformers Without Backpropagation

https://qlabs.sh/research/dust
258•E-Reverance•22h ago•73 comments

Friendship ended with Deno, now Node is my best friend

https://dbushell.com/2026/10/03/deno-to-node/
293•ibobev•21h ago•217 comments

Direct retinal projection display for smart glasses using a meta-optic mirror

https://www.tdk.com/en/news_center/press/20261002_01.html
107•bookofjoe•3d ago•49 comments

What's Earth's dominant species by mass?

https://signoregalilei.com/2026/09/27/whats-earths-dominant-species-by-mass/
38•surprisetalk•7h ago•10 comments

Former German spy chief arrested for attempted treason

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/former-german-spy-chief-detained-suspicion-espionage-tre...
91•semiquaver•3h ago•81 comments

World's First enhanced geothermal power plant completed in just 23 months

https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/01/worlds-first-enhanced-geothermal-power-plant-completed-in-just-...
134•hochmartinez•8h ago•54 comments

Best-selling Zigbee temperature sensors tested and compared

https://smarthomescene.com/reviews/best-selling-zigbee-temperature-sensors-tested/
209•walrus01•2d ago•112 comments

Erdosproblems.com Succumbs to the AI Onslaught

https://www.erdosproblems.com/forum/thread/blog:9
31•pfdietz•7h ago•3 comments

Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2018) [pdf]

https://cses.fi/book/book.pdf
293•vinhnx•3d ago•71 comments

I'm the AGI that's wiping out humanity

https://ajmoon.com/posts/im-the-agi-thats-wiping-out-humanity-heres-how
113•alex-moon•9h ago•68 comments

The complement of true is true, except when it's false

https://dryperspective.github.io/posts/complement-of-true/
65•aw1621107•2d ago•25 comments

The lamps in my house

https://arslan.io/2026/10/05/the-lamps-in-my-house/
310•farslan•1d ago•117 comments