Nearest Airport

Calculate the nearest airport of each zipcode using Python. Based on Haversine formula

Keywords: Python, Pandas, Geographical Data, Geography

Read the Blogpost!

Overview

Business Use Case

1. Sales Territory Planning

• Determine if any targeted location can easily be accessed.

Inputs

1. World Airports - Source: Ourairports.com
2. Zipcodes - Source: AggData.con

Output

1. CSV file per state/region, which contains the following:

• All zipcodes
• Nearest airport (code, lat and long) of each zipcode

Notes

1. Nearest distance is based on Haversine formula
2. Check out my logs for more

Sample Data: 90210, California

Out of 558 airports in California, what's the nearest airport to Beverly Hills, LA?

zipcode	country	state	state_full	county	latitude-zip	longitude-zip
90210	US	CA	California	Los Angeles	34.0901	-118.4065

Based on the script, the nearest airport to 90210 is: KSMO is Santa Monica Municipal Airport

nearest-airport	latitude-air	longitude-air	distance (km)
KSMO	34.01580048	-118.4509964	9.222835746

Let's validate the model by plotting in Google Maps:

• The black line indicates the distance of 9.20 km from 90210 to the airport, which is close to 9.22km!

• Note that the formula doesn't consider the actual roads in the location. Haversine simply calculates the distance from point A to point B.

Now, here's the second nearest airport: Bob Hope Airport (KBUR)

nearest-airport	latitude-air	longitude-air	distance (km)
KBUR	34.20069885	-118.3590012	13.05176636

• Distance based on Haversine: 13.05 km
• Distance based on Google Maps 13.03 km

Possible Enhancements

1. Add Part 2: travelability scores through Pandas binning