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/

RAG Is Simpler Than You Think

https://www.lighthousenewsletter.com/p/rag-is-simpler-than-you-think
122•j0selit0•3h ago•50 comments

Oldinsurancemaps.net is now a Charter Project

https://openstreetmap.us/news/2026/08/oim-charter-project/
70•altilunium•2h ago•11 comments

It's Not the End of Programming

https://mathstodon.xyz/@abuseofnotation/117161292083848755
28•boris_m•1h ago•31 comments

Z.ai confirms Ox Alpha is a new GLM-series model and will release its weights

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-26/china-s-z-ai-made-ox-alpha-stealth-model-that-...
127•garo-pro•1h ago•44 comments

Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)

https://rupertlinacre.com/buslens/
49•RobinL•4h ago•31 comments

Value Classes Still Need Compiler Sympathy

https://johan-sjolen.github.io/post/compiler-sympathy/compiler-sympathy/
36•lichtenberger•2h ago•15 comments

Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-m6-and-m5-ultra-for-a-big-leap-in-perform...
1186•interpol_p•22h ago•1152 comments

Stalking the Wily Hacker: 40 years later – Cliff Stoll [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=656058JxTM0
131•zoenolan•4d ago•38 comments

FDA authorizes first wearable device that monitors ketone and blood sugar levels

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-authorizes-first-wearable-device-continuo...
431•sunnynagra•16h ago•204 comments

OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell

https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/openai-jalapeno-better-than-nvidia
512•bmulholland•21h ago•326 comments

Queryable Executables

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/24/actually-queryable-executables
221•rguiscard•11h ago•61 comments

New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-new-mac-studio-with-m5-max-and-m5-ultra/
777•interpol_p•22h ago•522 comments

Harvest (IBM 7950): Supercomputer for cryptanalysis at the NSA in the Cold War

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cold-war-codebreaker-nsa-ibm
49•jnord•6h ago•12 comments

Beyond Recall and the Illusion of Competence

https://var0.xyz/posts/beyond-recall-and-the-illusion-of-competence.html
13•tuxie_•1h ago•4 comments

Black hole singularity is a surface not a point

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.21590
263•raattgift•18h ago•191 comments

Maiao: Gerrit-style code review workflow for GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, others

https://github.com/runetes/maiao
95•zdw•13h ago•55 comments

New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-unveils-a-more-powerful-mac-mini-featuring-the-all-n...
505•runako•22h ago•321 comments

When str.lower() is a security vulnerability in Python

https://sethmlarson.dev/when-str-lower-is-a-security-vulnerability
139•rbanffy•15h ago•60 comments

U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/u-s-govt-moves-to-suppress-pushback-on-da...
69•rbanffy•1h ago•55 comments

Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1442
998•Banditoz•18h ago•836 comments

Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

https://www.imkylelambert.com/articles/building-a-backyard-office-the-build-and-cost-breakdown
366•surprisetalk•21h ago•222 comments

XCancel and Nitter are receiving C&D letters from XCorp

29•mobilio•2h ago•8 comments

Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bomb-fishing-coral-reefs
329•speckx•21h ago•171 comments

Tooltips need a delay, and then they need to skip it

https://blog.master.dev/tooltips-need-a-delay-and-then-they-need-to-skip-it/
191•ibobev•19h ago•60 comments

Run OpenBSD on DigitalOcean for $4/month

https://nil.wallyjones.com/run-openbsd-on-digitalocean-for-4month/
176•speckx•18h ago•82 comments

Don't Wordle

https://dontwordle.com/
357•Hbruz0•1d ago•127 comments

Debian polls its developers on AI: permit or ban?

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/26/debian-polls-its-developers-on-whether-to-burn-t...
12•lproven•1h ago•6 comments

Agentic Context Management: Memory and Cost as Architecture Problems

https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21503
61•gdad•9h ago•23 comments

C2PA Cameras Do Not Survive Contact with Reality

https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/android-c2pa.html
164•Retr0id•16h ago•107 comments

The Feeling of Power (Asimov, 1958)

https://archive.org/details/1958-02_IF
13•irdc•1h ago•2 comments