For the past several years, I've subscribed to the OAG skyguide. It's nice to have a listing of all the flights going back home as I head for the airport (to see if there's an earlier, or sometimes later flight). Call me a luddite, but I like to have a hardcopy of the flight schedules. I know there are some other sky guides out there. For my fellow luddites, which (hardcopy) guide do you like/subscribe to?

The options get worse as the years go by.

I used to be able to find all the detail I wanted in an OAG (the big book one) in about 5 seconds. The various computerised alternatives are grossly dumbed-down from this style, to the extent I can still be struggling after a couple of minutes.

Some pointers to producers of schedule information :

1. Do not just use the same display engine you use for your reservations system. The requirements are quite different.

2. There are a large number of travellers who are quite capable of looking at the complete schedule for an airport, a route, or even a whole airline, and find just what they want. We are not all the schmucks that seem to have penetrated travel agency front desks or corporate travel departments in recent years and who need things presented to them little bit by little bit, and who you only seem to cater for.

3. There was a super product a few years ago "Goldenware Travel Desk" which got the closest to perfection - everything shown, straightforward but tailorable display, ability to drop it out into Excel, etc. American Express Skyguide got their hands on this, and, of course, ruined it.

4. Goldenware also did the downloadable applications for Star Alliance, OneWorld and Skyteam. Skyteam was screwed up first, then OneWorld (replaced by a nonsense that got many complaints here on FT), and finally Star. Fortunately Star listened to all the complaints and put the old good one back, but nobody else did.

5. To all, do not, when I put in last weeks date for schedule information, give me an error message. Sometimes I want this information. This is a timetable. I AM NOT TRYING TO MAKE A RESERVATION !

6. There is a considerable market out there for an effective computer-based application for this. The timetable schedule data is already all there, it just needs a sensible front end. OAG take note (please, as you have the best database of flights).

Absolutely. Years ago I could consult the paper OAG for free at the local public library, which had subscriptions to both the domestic and international editions. Then they dropped their subscription on the ground that "Oh that's all on the computer now." Hah!

With all the fancy computerization nowadays it's still amazingly hard to find answers to simple and common (among travelers) questions like, "On which days of the week in summer are there non-stop flights between A and B?" or "To which European gateways does airline x fly nonstop from ORD?" The paper OAG made it much easier to answer these questions than most web sites do now.