FarePlots is a site that allows users to view the price history of different flights. It relies on a set of ruby scripts that scrape pricing data from airline websites and store it in the FarePlots database. The front-end then allows users to select their flight, if available, and view a chart of the price movement.

I built this site because I was interested in using data from airlines to predict future flight prices. I’m a big believer in the power of data analysis and I wanted to see if I could learn more about flight pricing than something like Farecast gives me. I ended up using R to analyze the data and learn things like how likely it is that a fare will go up if the airline tells you there are “X seats left at this price.”

I’m particularly proud of this site because I think it offers real value to a user and is more than just a glorified database. This was my first app where I started with what I wanted to do and then asked how Rails would allow me to do it, as opposed to the other way around.