Fare data methodology

Short answer

Flare is a fare-monitoring and discovery product. The public pages contain timestamped observations selected from the latest scan output. They are not a booking engine, travel agency quote or promise that a seat remains available.

How a fare enters the public collection

The upstream scanner combines fare candidates available to the product from multiple airline and flight-search data feeds. For the public collection, the generator applies the same explicit minimum gates to every candidate:

• both the current amount and its comparison reference must be positive;
• the measured drop must be at least 30%;
• the Flare Deal Score must be at least 55;
• a destination page enters with 7 distinct combinations and can remain during a 24-hour grace window with 5 current combinations.
• a departure-city page must contain at least 12 observations across 10 active destination pages.

The Deal Score is a prioritisation signal, not an external rating. It weighs the size and confidence of the deviation alongside itinerary characteristics such as stops, duration and trip shape. It does not make a fare “verified” merely by being high.

What “reference price” means

Where sufficient route history exists, the comparison value is based on a median of observed baseline prices. The scoring engine trims the outer 10% of those observations before taking the median, and it requires a minimum history before allowing the comparison to imply a large drop.

For some long-haul routes with limited history, the upstream engine can use a conservative distance-calibrated reference. That fallback carries lower confidence and cannot by itself qualify a fare for the system’s reserved mistake-fare band. A Flare reference is therefore a product measurement, not a universal market average or a price published by every airline.

Freshness and verification

The public deal collection is scheduled to rebuild every three hours. Each page prints its own UTC snapshot time. Some promising candidates can receive an additional live recheck upstream, but coverage varies and a public page does not claim that every row has the same verification status.

Airfares are volatile. Inventory, currency conversion, point of sale, passenger count, taxes and optional services can alter the final amount. A result can disappear between the page refresh and the reader’s search.

City and airport consolidation

Destination and departure pages group airport or metropolitan codes only when the city name and country match in Flare’s airport reference. Every fare card still prints the exact IATA codes used by its itinerary. Consolidation prevents near-duplicate city pages; it does not imply that two airports have the same access time, fees or practical value.

Row-level provenance

Each downloadable row records the source market and the UTC timestamp exposed by the upstream batch that contained the candidate, together with the later UTC publication time. This is batch-level provenance. The source payload does not expose a reliable provider identity for every row, so Flare does not publish or infer one. A source batch time must not be read as a provider quote time or a live verification time.

Versioning and reproducibility

Every published dataset is copied into a timestamped archive directory. Archive files are append-only: the generator refuses to replace a file with different bytes at an existing version URL. A SHA-256 checksum manifest lets a reader verify downloaded JSON, CSV, field definitions and citation text. The version index links every retained snapshot.

Measured answers from this dataset

• Average discount of a qualifying flight deal right now
• Median price of a qualifying flight deal
• Share of deals at 50% off or more
• One-way share of observed deals
• Share of deals under 50 EUR
• Weekly Fare Drop Digest

Reuse rights

IVRYN grants reuse only for the Flare-authored compilation elements it owns. Underlying fare facts, feed rights, provider material, airline names and third-party database rights are not relicensed. Read the exact scope on the data reuse page and consult the machine-readable field dictionary.

How to use the information

1. Read the IATA codes, dates, trip type and stop count shown on the card.
2. Run a fresh search and compare the complete itinerary with the observation.
3. Confirm baggage, airport changes, self-transfers, cancellation rules and the final payable total.
4. Check passport, visa, transit, health and entry requirements with the relevant official authorities.

Publishing responsibility

These automated data pages are authored and maintained as product output by Flare, an IVRYN product. Travel guides follow the separate editorial policy. Questions or corrections can be sent to contact@flareflights.com.