Package ‘anyflights’

September 11, 2023

Title Query 'nycflights13'-Like Air Travel Data for Given Years and
Airports
Version 0.3.4
Description Supplies a set of functions to query air travel data for user-
specified years and airports. Datasets include on-time flights, airlines,
airports, planes, and weather.
License CC0
Depends R (>= 3.5.0)
Imports httr, dplyr, readr, utils, lubridate, vroom, glue, purrr,
stringr, curl, usethis, roxygen2, progress

URL https://github.com/simonpcouch/anyflights

BugReports https://github.com/simonpcouch/anyflights/issues
RoxygenNote 7.2.3
Encoding UTF-8
Suggests testthat, nycflights13, covr
NeedsCompilation no
Author Simon P. Couch [aut, cre],
Hadley Wickham [ctb],
Jay Lee [ctb],
Dennis Irorere [ctb]
Maintainer Simon P. Couch <[email protected]>
Repository CRAN
Date/Publication 2023-09-11 15:40:02 UTC

R topics documented:
anyflights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
anyflights_description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
as_flights_package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
get_airlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1
2 anyflights

get_airports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
get_flights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
get_planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
get_weather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Index 12

anyflights Query nycflights13-Like Air Travel Data

Description
This function generates a list of dataframes similar to those found in the nycflights13 data pack-
age for any US airports and time frames. Please note that, even with a strong internet connection,
this function may take several minutes to download relevant data.

Usage
anyflights(station, year, month = 1:12, dir = NULL)

Arguments
station A character vector giving the origin US airports of interest (as the FAA LID
airport code).
year A numeric giving the year of interest. This argument is currently not vectorized,
as dataset sizes for single years are significantly large. Information for the most
recent year is usually available by February or March in the following year.
month A numeric giving the month(s) of interest.
dir An optional character string giving the directory to save datasets in. By default,
datasets will not be saved to file.

Details
The anyflights() function is a wrapper around the following functions:

• get_airlines: Grab data to translate between two letter carrier codes and names
• get_airports: Grab data on airport names and locations
• get_flights: Grab data on all flights that departed given US airports in a given year and
month
• get_planes: Grab construction information about each plane
• get_weather: Grab hourly meterological data for a given airport in a given year and month

The recommended approach to download data for many stations (airports) is to supply a vector of
stations to the station argument rather than iterating over many calls to anyflights(). The faa
column in dataframes outputted by get_airports() provides the FAA LID codes for all supported
airports. See ?get_flights for more details on implementation.
anyflights_description 3

Value
A list of dataframes (and, optionally, a directory of datasets) similar to those found in the nycflights13
data package.

See Also
get_flights for flight data, get_weather for weather data, get_airlines for airlines data, get_airports
for airports data, or get_planes for planes data.
Use the as_flights_package function to convert the output of this function to a data-only package.

Examples
# grab data on all flights departing from
# Portland International Airport in June 2019 and
# other useful metadata without saving to file
## Not run: anyflights("PDX", 2018, 6)

# ...or, grab that same data and opt to save the

# file as well! (tempdir() can usually be specified
# as a character string giving the path to a folder)
## Not run: anyflights("PDX", 2018, 6, tempdir())

anyflights_description
anyflights: ‘nycflights13‘-Like Data for Specified Years and Airports

Description
The anyflights package supplies a set of functions to generate nycflights13-like datasets and data
packages for specified years and airports.

Author(s)
Maintainer: Simon P. Couch <[email protected]>
Other contributors:
• Hadley Wickham <[email protected]> [contributor]
• Jay Lee <[email protected]> [contributor]
• Dennis Irorere <[email protected]> [contributor]

See Also
Useful links:
• https://github.com/simonpcouch/anyflights
• Report bugs at https://github.com/simonpcouch/anyflights/issues
4 get_airlines

as_flights_package Generate a Data Package from ‘anyflights‘ Data

Description
Generate a data-only package, including documentation, from data outputted by the ‘anyflights()‘
function. Please do not submit the outputted package to CRAN or similar repositories as original
packages.

Usage
as_flights_package(data, name = make.names(deparse(substitute(data))))

Arguments
data A named list of dataframes outputted by anyflights.
name The desired name of the resulting package as a character string. The package
will check that the supplied package name is valid using the regular expression
.standard_regexps()$valid_package_name, and save the output in a direc-
tory by the same name. Defaults to make.names(deparse(substitute(data))).

Value
A directory containing a data-only package built around the supplied data.

get_airlines Query nycflights13-Like Airlines Data

Description
This function generates a dataframe similar to the airlines dataset from nycflights13 for any
US airports and time frame. Please note that, even with a strong internet connection, this function
may take several minutes to download relevant data.

Usage
get_airlines(dir = NULL, flights_data = NULL)

Arguments
dir An optional character string giving the directory to save datasets in. By default,
datasets will not be saved to file.
flights_data Optional—either a filepath as a character string or a dataframe outputted by
get_flights that will be used to subset the output to only include relevant
carriers/planes. If not supplied, all carriers/planes will be returned.
get_airports 5

Value
A data frame with <2k rows and 2 variables:
carrier Two or three length letter or number abbreviation. In cases whgere the the Unique Carrier
Code has been use more than once, a suffix is added. ex. ML, ML (1). This list matches the
‘Reporting_Airline‘ field in the BTS documentation for the flights data set
name Full name

Source
https://www.bts.gov/

See Also
get_flights for flight data, get_weather for weather data, get_airports for airports data, get_planes
for planes data, or anyflights for a wrapper function.
Use the as_flights_package function to convert this dataset to a data-only package.

Examples

# run with defaults

## Not run: get_airlines()

# if you'd like to only return the airline

# abbreviations only for airlines that appear in
# \code{flights}, query your flights dataset first,
# and then supply it as a flights_data argument
## Not run: get_airlines(flights_data = get_flights("PDX", 2018, 6))

get_airports Query nycflights13-Like Airports Data

Description
This function generates a dataframe similar to the airports dataset from nycflights13 for any
US airports and time frame. Please note that, even with a strong internet connection, this function
may take several minutes to download relevant data.

Usage
get_airports(dir = NULL)

Arguments
dir An optional character string giving the directory to save datasets in. By default,
datasets will not be saved to file.
6 get_flights

Value

A data frame with ~1350 rows and 8 variables:

faa FAA airport code

name Usual name of the airport
lat, lon Location of airport
alt Altitude, in feet
tz Timezone offset from GMT/UTC
dst Daylight savings time zone. A = Standard US DST: starts on the second Sunday of March,
ends on the first Sunday of November. U = unknown. N = no dst.
tzone IANA time zone, as determined by GeoNames webservice

Source

https://openflights.org/data.html

See Also

get_flights for flight data, get_weather for weather data, get_airlines for airlines data, get_planes
for planes data, or anyflights for a wrapper function.
Use the as_flights_package function to convert this dataset to a data-only package.

Examples

# grab airports data

## Not run: get_airports()

get_flights Query nycflights13-Like Flights Data

Description

This function generates a dataframe similar to the flights dataset from nycflights13 for any US
airport and time frame. Please note that, even with a strong internet connection, this function may
take several minutes to download relevant data.

Usage

get_flights(station, year, month = 1:12, dir = NULL, ...)

get_flights 7

Arguments
station A character vector giving the origin US airports of interest (as the FAA LID
airport code).
year A numeric giving the year of interest. This argument is currently not vectorized,
as dataset sizes for single years are significantly large. Information for the most
recent year is usually available by February or March in the following year.
month A numeric giving the month(s) of interest.
dir An optional character string giving the directory to save datasets in. By default,
datasets will not be saved to file.
... Currently only used internally.

Details
This function currently downloads data for all stations for each month supplied, and then filters out
data for relevant stations. Thus, the recommended approach to download data for many airports is
to supply a vector of airport codes to the station argument rather than iterating over many calls to
get_flights().

Value
A data frame with ~1k-500k rows and 19 variables:

year, month, day Date of departure

dep_time, arr_time Actual departure and arrival times, UTC.
sched_dep_time, sched_arr_time Scheduled departure and arrival times, UTC.
dep_delay, arr_delay Departure and arrival delays, in minutes. Negative times represent early
departures/arrivals.
hour, minute Time of scheduled departure broken into hour and minutes.
carrier Two letter carrier abbreviation. See get_airlines to get full name
tailnum Plane tail number
flight Flight number
origin, dest Origin and destination. See get_airports for additional metadata.
air_time Amount of time spent in the air, in minutes
distance Distance between airports, in miles
time_hour Scheduled date and hour of the flight as a POSIXct date. Along with origin, can be
used to join flights data to weather data.

Note
If you are repeatedly getting a timeout error when downloading flights, this could be because your
download is taking longer than the default timeout R option. You can change the timeout value for
your R session by running the code options(timeout = timeout_value_in_seconds) in your
console.
8 get_planes

Source
RITA, Bureau of transportation statistics, https://www.bts.gov

See Also
get_weather for weather data, get_airlines for airlines data, get_airports for airports data,
get_planes for planes data, or anyflights for a wrapper function.
Use the as_flights_package function to convert this dataset to a data-only package.

Examples

# flights out of Portland International in June 2018

## Not run: get_flights("PDX", 2018, 6)

# ...or the original nycflights13 flights dataset

## Not run: get_flights(c("JFK", "LGA", "EWR"), 2013)

# use the dir argument to indicate the folder to

# save the data in \code{dir} as "flights.rda"
## Not run: get_flights("PDX", 2018, 6, dir = tempdir())

get_planes Query nycflights13-Like Planes Data

Description
This function generates a dataframe similar to the planes dataset from nycflights13 for any US
airports and time frame. Please note that, even with a strong internet connection, this function may
take several minutes to download relevant data.

Usage
get_planes(year, dir = NULL, flights_data = NULL)

Arguments
year A numeric giving the year of interest. This argument is currently not vectorized,
as dataset sizes for single years are significantly large. Information for the most
recent year is usually available by February or March in the following year.
dir An optional character string giving the directory to save datasets in. By default,
datasets will not be saved to file.
flights_data Optional—either a filepath as a character string or a dataframe outputted by
get_flights that will be used to subset the output to only include relevant
carriers/planes. If not supplied, all carriers/planes will be returned.
get_weather 9

Value
A data frame with ~3500 rows and 9 variables:

tailnum Tail number

year Year manufactured
type Type of plane
manufacturer, model Manufacturer and model
engines, seats Number of engines and seats
speed Average cruising speed in mph
engine Type of engine

Source
FAA Aircraft registry, https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/
aircraft_registry/releasable_aircraft_download

See Also
get_flights for flight data, get_weather for weather data, get_airlines for airlines data, get_airports
for airports data, or anyflights for a wrapper function.
Use the as_flights_package function to convert this dataset to a data-only package.

Examples

# grab airplanes data for 2018

## Not run: get_planes(2018)

# if you'd like to only return the planes that appear

# in \code{flights}, query your flights dataset first,
# and then supply it as a \code{flights_data} argument
## Not run: get_planes(2018,
flights_data = get_flights("PDX", 2018, 6))
## End(Not run)

get_weather Query nycflights13-Like Weather Data

Description
This function generates a dataframe similar to the weather dataset from nycflights13 for any US
airports and time frame. Please note that, even with a strong internet connection, this function may
take several minutes to download relevant data.
10 get_weather

Usage
get_weather(station, year, month = 1:12, dir = NULL)

Arguments
station A character vector giving the origin US airports of interest (as the FAA LID
airport code).
year A numeric giving the year of interest. This argument is currently not vectorized,
as dataset sizes for single years are significantly large. Information for the most
recent year is usually available by February or March in the following year.
month A numeric giving the month(s) of interest.
dir An optional character string giving the directory to save datasets in. By default,
datasets will not be saved to file.

Value
A data frame with ~1k-25k rows and 15 variables:

origin Weather station. Named origin to facilitate merging with flights data
year, month, day, hour Time of recording, UTC
temp, dewp Temperature and dewpoint in F
humid Relative humidity
wind_dir, wind_speed, wind_gust Wind direction (in degrees), speed and gust speed (in mph)
precip Precipitation, in inches
pressure Sea level pressure in millibars
visib Visibility in miles
time_hour Date and hour of the recording as a POSIXct date, UTC

Source
ASOS download from Iowa Environmental Mesonet, https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/
request/download.phtml

See Also
get_flights for flight data, get_airlines for airlines data, get_airports for airports data,
get_planes for planes data, or anyflights for a wrapper function.
Use the as_flights_package function to convert this dataset to a data-only package.

Examples

# query weather at Portland International in June 2018

## Not run: get_weather("PDX", 2018, 6)

# ...or the original nycflights13 weather dataset

get_weather 11

## Not run: get_weather(c("JFK", "LGA", "EWR"), 2013)

# use the dir argument to indicate the folder to

# save the data in as "weather.rda"
## Not run: get_weather("PDX", 2018, 6, dir = tempdir())
Index

_PACKAGE (anyflights_description), 3

airlines, 4
airports, 5
anyflights, 2, 4–6, 8–10
anyflights-package
(anyflights_description), 3
anyflights_description, 3
anyflights_package
(anyflights_description), 3
as_flights_package, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8–10

flights, 6

get_airlines, 2, 3, 4, 6–10
get_airports, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7–10
get_flights, 2–6, 6, 8–10
get_planes, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10
get_weather, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9

planes, 8

weather, 9

12