Clear Skies

Assess flight delay risks with precision — powered by live weather, TSA, and historical data.

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Inspiration

There are many risks and uncertainties that come with planning to travel, especially with the current government shutdown in 2025. As a result, scheduling may prove difficult and cause a sense of insecurity for many individuals who want to ensure they stay on time for their flight. We made clear skies with the hopes of helping people plan ahead by checking various conditions and assessing the level of risk.

What it does

Clear Skies is an AI-powered travel intelligence platform that consolidates real-time flight, weather, and security data into a single conversational interface.

How we built it

Backend: Node.js + TypeScript, Model Context Protocol (MCP) for LLM integration AI Engine: Claude Haiku 4.5 with real-time tool calling APIs: AviationStack (flight data), WeatherAPI (weather forecasting), TSA MyTSA (security wait times), NewsData (travel news) Infrastructure: Vultr VPS, Nginx reverse proxy, PM2 process manager Frontend: React/HTML served from Node.js HTTP server Architecture: MCP WebSocket server enabling real-time LLM tool execution

Challenges we ran into

Deciding what tools to build the MCP was the hardest part of starting our project. Additionally, many APIs had limited rates to the number of requests which forced us to consider how to utilize our tests smartly. We also had to have Claude organize our code in a way that is readable and correctly connected with one another.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our codebase is fully typed, modular and deployed on the Vultr server at 155.138.247.47. Gemini calls our APIs properly and uses that data to make a logical inference on the risk level. Single query can intelligently fetch data from multiple sources and synthesize insights

What we learned

The Model Context Protocol enables LLMs to become truly agentic. Claude makes excellent decisions about which tools to use. A properly configured server is as important as the application code itself.

What's next for Clear Skies

We'll introduce premium features including early delay warnings, lounge recommendations, and airline loyalty optimization, while scaling the infrastructure to handle 100k+ users through aggressive caching and API optimization. The ultimate goal is to establish Clear Skies as an AI copilot that eliminates travel anxiety by providing real-time intelligence and proactive guidance across the entire travel experience.

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