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We have been highlighting ways Wolfram|Alpha can be a part of your daily life, and we think you will find it a great addition to your other travel resources. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, Wolfram|Alpha can become a part of your planning by providing essential data.
Let’s say you live in San Francisco, California and want to fly to Miami, Florida. Type “San Francisco airports” into Wolfram|Alpha, and your results conveniently include the airport code “SFO” for the San Francisco International Airport. You can use Wolfram|Alpha to instantly access all codes for all U.S. airports, even those as obscure as 11II. Results also list elevation of the airport, number of runways, local time, and other nearby airports in case you want to search for better alternatives for your departure and arrival cities.
While the airport search also returns basic weather information, Wolfram|Alpha offers weather data in richer detail for planning your travel activities. Add the date of your trip—let’s say August 14—to get last year’s weather on that day plus years of historical data for the same day.
After selecting airports you can check your estimated travel time and distance. Let’s choose to fly from San Francisco International Airport to Miami International Airport. Enter “SFO to MIA” into Wolfram|Alpha and it will tell you that a direct flight is 2,585 miles. Enter “SFO to MIA time” and it will tell you that the flight time is approximately 4.7 hours.
Uncertain which carrier will deliver you to your destination most efficiently? Wolfram|Alpha can show you a visual comparison of on-time flights for different airlines. For instance, if you are having trouble deciding between Northwest Airlines, American Airlines, and JetBlue Airways, a comparison of this data could be the determining factor. Enter “Northwest Airlines American Airlines JetBlue on time” and Wolfram|Alpha will display this a chart comparing the history of each airline’s on-time arrivals, from which you can see that Northwest has recently had more on-time flights than the other two.
Our flight data is currently only for U.S. domestic flights; however, please note that Wolfram|Alpha is a long-term project and we are committed to adding worldwide flight information as soon as possible. So when you’re planning your next trip, let Wolfram|Alpha give you city, flight, and weather data.
wolfram is really getting better and usefull. Keep adding more features that makes me wanna visit this site more.
Nice feature, but would it be possible to show also the actual METAR message where the weather information is collected from? Would be cool for us aviation freaks.
Try entering “Montreal airports.” I get the same response that I’ve gotten every single time I’ve entered anything into W/A: “Wolfram Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your query.” I have never gotten any other response from this engine, no matter what I’ve entered. Why does this thing exist? Is it a joke?
It would be nice to search direct a flight number like KL0896 for example, with all available informations.
Oh man… disapointed you don’t include Australia. Hopefully soon.
WolframAlpha while not yet perfect, it’s a very powerful tool and fun to play with.
Now this is what I call W|A getting warmed up … Kudos to the team !! Why not add some information available at http://www.virtualtourist.com as well to it … that will make a great one stop website for all travel information. Waiting eagerly for more innovative applications ….
Try entering “Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport”. Works fine, but I agree that it would be better if it worked for “Montreal Airport”. You can enter the IATA (or FAA) codes if you have them and that works, too. Montreal’s code is YUL. Trying to find syntax and structure that Worfram|Alpha likes is problematic in many different kinds of queries. They have a way to go, but in the meantime, it is interesting to try to figure out the correct language for a good W/A response.
As Olli Keijonen mentioned, it would be cool to show detailed aviation-specific weather data. The weather reports along the chosen route are also available for free from sites such as http://aviationweather.gov/. The data even include real time turbulence maps.
Another cool feature would be to show actual route according to the current or past flight plan. The information is available from e.g. http://www.fltplan.com/
Correction, the flight plans are at http://flightaware.com
GDP UK USA
gives a fine comparison graphs and all, but
Prostate Cancer UK USA
and similar entries fail to give a comparison even though individual country details are fine.
I would appreciate a fix for the above as I am trying to impress a Urology Consultant.
Brian,
This data is now computable in Wolfram|Alpha.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Prostate+Cancer+UK+USA+
Thank you.
Montreal’s code is YUL. Trying to find syntax and structure that Worfram|Alpha likes is problematic in many different kinds of queries. They have a way to go, but in the meantime, it is interesting to try to figure out the correct language for a good W/A response.
Try entering “Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport”. Works fine, but I agree that it would be better if it worked for “Montreal Airport”. Bulisms
Just stumbled across this tool after an argument about flight times to the US – this is very cool!!