FlightScope

FlightScope is a Flask app that lets a user enter an active flight number and see local news for the flight's destination. The app looks up the active flight, finds the arrival airport, searches for nearby news, uses Gemini to classify and summarize local articles, and renders the results in a web page.

Features

• Search by flight number from the home page.
• Looks up active flight data with Aviationstack.
• Maps arrival airport codes to city, state, country, latitude, and longitude.
• Fetches local news near the destination with WorldNewsAPI.
• Uses Gemini to filter local articles, categorize them, and create a destination summary.
• Caches recent searches in SQLite for 15 minutes.

Setup

Create and activate a virtual environment:

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Create a .env file in the project root:

AVIATIONSTACK_API_KEY=your_aviationstack_key
WORLDNEWS_API_KEY=your_worldnewsapi_key
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_key

Run

Start the Flask app:

python app.py

Open:

http://127.0.0.1:5001/

Enter an active flight number such as AA100, DL9483, or another currently active flight.

How It Works

1. GET / renders the search form.
2. POST /results reads flight_number from the form.
3. The app checks the SQLite cache for a recent matching search.
4. If there is no cache hit, it calls Aviationstack to find the active flight destination.
5. It calls WorldNewsAPI for local articles near the destination coordinates.
6. It calls Gemini through classify_articles() to filter, categorize, and summarize articles.
7. It saves successful results to flightscope.db and renders templates/results.html.

Project Structure

app.py                     Flask routes and page flow
requirements.txt           Python dependencies
static/style.css           App styling
templates/index.html       Search page
templates/results.html     Results page
services/flight.py         Aviationstack flight lookup
services/news.py           WorldNewsAPI local news lookup
services/classifier.py     Gemini article classifier and summarizer
services/db.py             SQLite cache
services/data/airports.json Airport metadata
tests/                     Service tests

Troubleshooting

Not Found on / usually means the Flask server is not running the current app.py or you are on the wrong port. This app runs on port 5001.

We couldn't find an active flight means Aviationstack did not return a currently active flight for that flight number. Try a different live flight.

We found your flight, but couldn't load local news right now can mean WorldNewsAPI failed, Gemini failed, or Gemini quota was exceeded. Check the terminal output for the exact API error.

If Gemini returns 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED, the API key has hit its quota. Wait for quota reset, use another project/key, or increase quota.

Notes

• .env, log files, Python cache files, and flightscope.db are ignored by git.
• Flight activity changes quickly, so a flight number that works now may fail later.