Ripcord 166 Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 Somebody did a really cool airline schedule for Virgin Everything Airlines, and I really appreciated all the work that guy put in. I am a jerk because I cannot remember his name right now but I will look it up again the download section, now that I grasp what a herculean task this must have been. Thank you, buddy.OK, now I am wondering how in the hell he did it -- he could not have just simply sat there with PFPX open all day for a week, drinking coffee and inputting data manually for every flight that Virgin Atlantic/America/Australia flies all over the globe. It got me thinking that because this schedule is in XML format, maybe there is some cool trick that can be employed? Maybe there is someway to download a timetable and convert it to excel, manipulated into a table, and from there into XML..... Ideas?Imagine having STAR ALLIANCE and/or SKYTEAM timetable in XML format which you could just then upload.... Hmmmm. Probably somebody smarter than me needs to think about this, but it is just data, and not magic unicorns. There has to be a way.Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mas618 34 Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 Check this post out Mark. It's been discussed several times, but to be honest I have no idea if anyone has made any progress on the parser, that would import a.pdf to xml... Would be awesome though... http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/72514-flight-schedule/ Mas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mas618 34 Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 Stumbled upon this, wonder if it's usefull in any way? http://www.staralliance.com/en/services/tools-and-downloads/timetables/ Mas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Yes that other thread was useful, though it would be far more useful if the data would have been shared. I wonder are we able to post attachments here on these forums? EDIT: I believe certain files we can upload to MyMedia and share that here. I was wanting to show the Lufthansa timetable that converted from PDF into MS excel. Not entirely useful, it would be a huge task to convert it into the format needed to be read/imported by PFPX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 I was hoping to access the data in that Star Alliance program but I could not open any of it, at least not in a readable format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Here is something that might work for some airlines -- at least those that have one main HOME BASE airport, such as Aeroflot (nearly all their flights start or end at SVO). Go to this site here... www.flightstats.com and search by AIRPORT ---> departures/arrivals. Filter down further by selecting your airline (I chose my old beloved AEROFLOT) and then I chose to HIDE CODESHARE flights. So these are just the Aeroflot flights departing or arriving from SVO on any given day. Then all I do is just copy and paste the entire table into EXCEL. I set up one worksheet in Excel for Arrivals and another for Departures. Keep in mind, there are SEVEN time periods (eg. 6 AM to 9 AM) per day, so you need to make repeat the copy/paste exercise 7 times for all departures and then again another 7 times for all arrivals. Next we need to figure out to convert the IATA codes to ICAO format which is what PFPX and FSX uses. But that is easy. Probably could run thru it manually in just a few minutes, but it would be super cool and much more efficient to figure out how to automate that step (I haven't yet however). From there it is just a matter of setting up a third worksheet in the same excel file that is formatted exactly the way the XLM schedule is formatted, and then make reference links to your data on your arrival and departure worksheets. This third worksheet, when completed, will become the XML file that we keep and use Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Also you can look up your airline and get a nice table of the Top 10 airports where they have scheduled departures/arrivals. For Aeroflot, it is 245 departures from Sheremetievo, and the next is Pulkovo (St Petersburg) at 14.So I'll just add in those as well (the ones not coming/going from Moscow), and call it good.EDIT: Actually all 14 of those from Pulkovo were going to or coming from Sheremetievo so there was nothing to add. Now I feel like I have captured the entirety of this airlines scheduled flights for one day.Whether or not you want to assume each flight is scheduled daily or not, well, that is up to you if you want to go into that level of details. I will just make them daily I think, unless the destination is really way off the beaten path. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 23, 2014 Author Share Posted March 23, 2014 OK this is a reasonable method, and I will continue with it. The problem is going thru and determining which flights DO NOT fly every day, and then, selecting the days that they do fly. I have not found a simple elegant way to do that without manually looking up each flight (arggh). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 Well crap - I managed to sort thru the days of the week issue by downloading the sky team schedule tool (which has a weekly view) available here: https://www.skyteam.com/en/your-trip/Services/Download-Timetables/However, I realized after all this that all the times of my inbound flights are arrival times and not departure times. So this method does not work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 I think perhaps the best available data out there is probably the World of AI traffic data. It is simple enough to decompile and put into excel as data, using a text delimiter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted March 29, 2014 Author Share Posted March 29, 2014 Maybe this is the way to go. All the data is already in CSV, and I've got it already converted into excel.http://openflights.org/data.htmlI will try a small airline and see if I can make it work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
becas 53 Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 Then report back your results. I would be interested in a SAT (Sata Air Azores) Schedule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted April 5, 2014 Author Share Posted April 5, 2014 No results (yet). Open Flight does not provide the flight numbers or the schedules, just the routes. Not going to work, unless people want to take their favorite airline and look up the flight numbers and departure times and add them in manually (not fun). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akorn 7 Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 If the data is in csv I'm sure I can come up with a solution. I used data like that to create the 737ng dispatch sheet. I'll just need to have a closer look at the output format requirements..... I'll be back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 Well I downloaded what I could in CSV and converted it to excel so I could use lookup functions. I am working my way thru it now, looking for inconsistencies. Don't mind sharing when I get thru it all the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akorn 7 Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 Beware of lookup functions. If things are not sorted correctly it will give odd answers. Use index function instead. As stated before openflight does not provide the data needed to make airline schedules automatically. But they may have something comming up. Read their webside. From the test samples I have made a small program that will convert the data to a pfpx file lets say for a selected airline or airport. The system works but im waiting for the data. According to openflight webside it is in beta. cheers Lasse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripcord 166 Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 OK then I will hold off and see what you are able to come up with. I was not able to get it into XML format in such a way that I could actually find any flights in PFPX anyway, so it was not a good use of time for me, it seems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArneH 15 Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I made a parser for the LH Pax flight schedule. You may download the parsed file in the AS download section: http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/files/file/2591-lufthansa-flight-schedule-pax-version/ A flight schedule for LH Cargo will follow in the next days. Maybe I will release the parser at a later date if it's more user friendly. If you have sources of other flight schedules (preferably as csv file) I might do a Multiparser in the future, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick1246 353 Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I have only xls for EK and EK Cargo http://skychain.emirates.com/skychain/app Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArneH 15 Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Just uploaded an updated version as there was an error with VIA connections. In the original flight schedule a pseudo "DCT" connection is also included. E.g., if we have a flight FRA-ASB which is via GYD, not only both legs FRA-GYD and GYD-ASB but als FRA-ASB were parsed. This error is now fixed and you may download the updated version from the download section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha117 51 Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Hi ArneH Many thanks for the work and the LH schedule. I have a question. I have always worked withthe airport ICAO for flights (EGCC > EDDF), but this schedule does not have this. Is there anyway I can get the ICAO codes to appear in PFPX instead of FRA -ASB, as I have no idea where they are Many Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArneH 15 Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 Hello Clive, once you mark a flight you'll see from where to where the scheduled flight is going to and as soon as you plan the flight it will be changed to the ICAO Code. But I know what you mean. Parsing ICAO Codes will be implemented in the next release. Currently working on the GUI and GEC Parser. Rgds Arne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha117 51 Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 Cheers Arne, Can't wait for your next release Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArneH 15 Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 Ok, changed the airport parsing from IATA to ICAO. New version in the download section. The Lufthansa Cargo flight schedule is now also avaiable in the download section. Rgds Arne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha117 51 Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 Wow That was quick Downloading now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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