Flight Map with ggplot2

1. Routes

We need the following data frame:

# create routes
library(dplyr)
routes <- tribble(
  ~origin_airport, ~dest_airport, ~origin_airport_lat,~origin_airport_lon, ~dest_airport_lat, ~dest_airport_lon,
  'IST',   'TXL',   40.9769,   28.8146,   52.5597,   13.28770,
  'TXL',   'TSF',   52.5597,   13.2877,   45.6484,   12.19440,
  'TXL',   'ZRH',   52.5597,   13.2877,   47.4647,    8.54917,
  'TXL',   'CPH',   52.5597,   13.2877,   55.6179,   12.65600,
  'TXL',   'DLM',   52.5597,   13.2877,   36.7131,   28.79250,
  'TXL',   'ADA',   52.5597,   13.2877,   36.9822,   35.28040,
  'TXL',   'BOJ',   52.5597,   13.2877,   42.5696,   27.51520,
  'TXL',   'TFS',   52.5597,   13.2877,   28.0445,  -16.57250,
  'TXL',   'BOS',   52.5597,   13.2877,   42.3643,  -71.00520,
  'TXL',   'FAE',   52.5597,   13.2877,   62.0636,   -7.27722,
  'TXL',   'CUZ',   52.5597,   13.2877,   13.5357,  -71.93880,
  'TXL',   'HKG',   52.5597,   13.2877,   22.3089,  113.91500)

3. Visualize

Draw a basic plot:

# cartesian
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(data = routes) + 
  geom_segment(aes(x = origin_airport_lon, y = origin_airport_lat,
                   xend = dest_airport_lon, yend = dest_airport_lat)) +
  geom_text(aes(x = dest_airport_lon, y = dest_airport_lat, label = dest_airport)) +
  coord_equal() +
  xlab("Lon") +
  ylab("Lat")

It does not look like a flight map.
We just draw line segments between origin_airport and destination_airport. Next step is adding polygons. We can get the polygon data with ggplot2::map_data function.

We can also change the theme by adding another layer: theme_void

library(ggplot2)
world <-  map_data("world") %>% tbl_df()
ggplot(data = routes) + 
  geom_polygon(data = world, aes(x = long, y = lat, group=group), 
               size = 0.2, color="white", alpha = 0.9, fill="lightgray") + 
  geom_segment(aes(x = origin_airport_lon, y = origin_airport_lat,
                   xend = dest_airport_lon, yend = dest_airport_lat),
               color = "brown") +
  geom_text(aes(x = dest_airport_lon, y = dest_airport_lat, label = dest_airport), size = 3) +
  theme_void()

We will have a more fancy plot by adding a coord_map layer.

library(maps)
ggplot(data = routes) + 
  geom_polygon(data = world, aes(x = long, y = lat, group=group), 
               size = 0.2, color="white", alpha = 0.9, fill="lightgray") + 
  geom_segment(aes(x = origin_airport_lon, y = origin_airport_lat,
                   xend = dest_airport_lon, yend = dest_airport_lat),
               color = "brown") +
  coord_map("azequalarea", orientation = c(0, -10, 0)) +
  theme_void()