Project linkDevelopment status - Very active
pre-alpha
LayoverFinder is a tool I built for finding routes with better layovers and more interesting stopover options.
What it does
- It shows airports and the destinations they connect to
- It finds routes between two airports or metro areas, with the number of stops you want and a few extra filters
- It shows which airlines fly a route and on which days
Why I built it
I travel quite a lot between Europe and the United States. Most of those trips involve a layover, since direct flights can get expensive and I usually do not mind the extra travel time. At some point I started wondering why it was still so hard to find routes where I could actually turn a layover into a proper stopover and spend some time in the city.
I could not find a tool that made this easy and was still affordable. I do not mind paying a small fee, but most of the options I found were either hard to read, full of ads, too expensive, or just not reliable enough. I use Google Flights for actual bookings, but manually trying route after route every time is not a great workflow.
So I built LayoverFinder.
How it works
There are really two sides to it: what the app does for a user, and how I built it.
Functional description
When you open the app, the first thing you see is a big map filled with airport dots. From there you can either click an airport to explore its destinations, or type in a route directly. Once you pick an airport, you can click a connected destination to inspect the route in more detail.
Technical description
The stack is pretty straightforward:
- Vue.js powers the frontend and renders the map, filters, and route views in the browser
- Supabase stores the airport, route, and schedule data
- FastAPI handles the backend work for fetching and storing price data, which is still a work in progress
- Vercel hosts the web app
I am still actively building LayoverFinder, and pricing is one of the biggest pieces I am working on right now. At the moment the app is split between the frontend and a separate backend layer for price-related work. Later on, I may merge more of that into one backend to keep the architecture simpler.
Next steps
I still have a long list of things I want to add. The project is moving quickly, so some parts are polished and some are still rough around the edges. If you want to follow along, the update log lives in the settings menu.
A few of the items I want to add:
- Full schedule support, including flight times and flight numbers
- Ticket price support. Prices change fast and are hard to obtain, but for me they are one of the main reasons to pick one route over another.
- A proper mobile version, and maybe eventually a native app
Besides building the app, I also want to get it in front of more people. If you have ideas, feedback, or travel use cases I should think about, send me a message at info@steynguelen.com.