airport-dist

A CLI tool to calculate geographical and aviation route distances between airports using IATA codes, with flight time estimates.

Installation

``bash
npm install -g airport-dist
`

Usage

`bash


Using long flags

airport-dist --from JFK --to LAX

Using short flags

airport-dist -f LHR -t DXB
`

Output

The tool provides two distance measurements plus flight time:

1. Geographical Distance - Great circle (Haversine) distance, the shortest path between two points on Earth
2. Aviation Route Distance - Actual airline route distance from bundled route database (55,000+ routes)
3. Flight Time - Estimated flight duration from airline data

`
Calculating distances from JFK to LAX...

Airports Found:
From: John F. Kennedy International Airport (New York, United States)
To: Los Angeles International Airport (Los Angeles, United States)

============================================================
DISTANCE RESULTS
============================================================

1. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTANCE (Great Circle / Haversine):
3974.34 km
2469.54 miles
2145.97 nautical miles

2. AVIATION ROUTE DISTANCE:
3982.00 km
2474.30 miles
2150.11 nautical miles
Flight time: 6h 19m
Source: Airline route data (bundled)

============================================================

Note: Aviation routes may differ from great circle distance due to
airways, restricted airspace, weather patterns, and traffic flow.
`

Options

| Option | Alias | Description |
|--------|-------|-------------|
| --from | -f | Origin airport IATA code (e.g., JFK) |
| --to | -t | Destination airport IATA code (e.g., LAX) |
| --version | -V | Show version number |
| --help | -h` | Show help |

Data Sources

- Airport Database: 150+ major international airports with coordinates
- Route Database: 55,000+ airline routes with distances and flight times from Jonty/airline-route-data
- Fallback: Estimation using industry-standard routing factors when route not in database

How It Works

- Geographical Distance: Calculated using the Haversine formula, which determines the great-circle distance between two points on a sphere given their latitudes and longitudes.

- Aviation Route Distance: Sourced from bundled airline route data containing actual flight distances. Falls back to estimation for routes not in the database.

- Flight Time: Sourced from bundled airline route data. Only available for routes in the database.

License

MIT