They say a picture is worth 1000 words. If so, why does the Star Alliance site (and so many airline web sites) lack a decent airline network map. I need to see, at a glance, where each carrier flies. At the least, a map pinpointing cities served. The Star Alliance site could depict cities with color-coded dots, each airline assigned a unique color.

Congested areas? Large-scale inset maps.

Frequent service changes? Update every week - not a big time commitment once digitized.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Are there any independent sites out there that provide decent route maps?

I have downloaded (some months ago) from the StarAlliance site a screensaver highlightening all destinations.

I hope the download link is still available there (I couldn't find it on their homepage right now).

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 12-05-2001).]

I agree 100%, there is a real lack of a good source of route information.

Each airline has its own route maps on their website, most of which are outdated. Furthermore, many of the maps provide very little information, for example the LH maps only show which destinations are "LH" and which are "Partners", without saying who the partner is. The result is much hunting through tables and other airlines websites to understand who REALLY flies to a specific destination. The star-alliance timetable also helps, but to use it you must already know all the airport codes you want.

For example, I recently wanted to understand who flies to anywhere in the south pacific, and I had only two ways to do that:
- enter airport codes for common destinations in the south pacific into the star-alliance timetable software, one-by-one and see the result. Considering I dont know the common destinations or the airport codes, this took a great deal of time!
- go to each website to see their route maps. This was easier because I could just "see" the flights, but it means a trip to each air-lines web site, and then trying to FIND the route maps, if you can find them! some airlines dont even publish them, or they are out of date!

Either way it is a major pain. I havent seen the screen saver, but what I would LOVE to see is a web (or even PC) based service as described above which shows all star-alliance routes colour-coded. It would also be nice if:

1. you could select which airlines to show or not show.
2. you could click on a route or an airport for more specific information.

Thinking about this more, this actually should not be too difficult to build based on the existing star-alliance PC-timetable databases... You would just need some digitized maps and the longitude/latitude for every airport code. Hmmm, maybe I should get some programmers working on this (my firm is an offshore software development company), and then sell it star-alliance!

Anyhow, I propose that we suggest this at the star-alliance chat.

Ron

Ron, you have a GREAT idea. How difficult would it be to update this once the program is created? Not very. And, of course, allowing the user to turn on/off various airlines would be real important.

I'm for it 100%, and will join you in suggesting it at the *a chat on the 13th. Anyone else?

FYI, I couldn't find any type of map at the SAS website.

SAS route map @ http://www.starsky.temp.wineasy.se/swe/redirect.html

Kempis,

Thanks for the link from the Swedish SAS website. The maps are a rather spiffy design. I went to the same place on the U.S. SAS site, and could not find any map. Nor are the words "Route Map" found in any heading. This is the type of problem we're dealing with.

I sent an e-mail to the makers of the star-alliance timetable program (they also do CO and AA and some others) asking about their file format. I threatened to reverse engineer it if they don't tell me, or to give them credit on the site if they do give me the info.

Once I have the file format, it should be easy to plot the routes using just about any map server like Xerox Parc (used by the great circle mapper).

Here are the features I would like to include in version 1.0:

- ability to select / deselect airlines and/or alliances to appear on the map
- ability to select / deselect domestic and international flights
- ability to pan/zoom/etc on maps.
- ability to click on an airport to get more details
- ability to click on a route to get more details

anybody have additional features they would like to see?

Ron

lewinr, great idea!

here is a feature I often miss:
- availability to show only but all routes leaving a specified airport

a good idea (to show only routes for a specific airport code).

another idea that I didnt mention, is to have pop-up info if you position the cursor over a route. So if you see a line you can put the cursor on it and it should show a pop-up box with the following info:

-which airport pair it is

-codes of the airlines who fly it (in case multiple airlines fly one route, the route line will show in a neuteral color).

-maybe flight numbers and times too, but I'm afraid that could be too much info. I think this will only display if you click on that route.

Another option I've thought about is to display routes only for a specific date or date-range. Does anybody think that would be useful?

One more option I also thought of is a "no-codeshares" flag.

Ron

Ron, these are all great ideas, most very useful. In the pop-up box, frequency-of-service indications by carrier would avoid an immediate need for flight numbers, times, and aircraft type. List # of trips per day or week, and seasonal date ranges if appropriate. Also, I wouldn't list codeshares in the first tier, just airlines that operate the equipment.

If feasible, it might be fun to indicate frequency of service by all selected carriers between selected city pairs by width of line, or color code.

I look forward to your product. Can't offer much technical assistance, but if I can put in a good word here or there, let me know.