Using Spark Machine Learning Models to Perform Predictive Analysis on
  Flight Ticket Pricing Data
Philip Wong Phue Thant Pratiksha Yadav Ruta Antaliya Jongwook Woo
This paper discusses predictive performance and processes undertaken on
flight pricing data utilizing r2(r-square) and RMSE that leverages a large
dataset, originally from Expedia.com, consisting of approximately 20 million
records or 4.68 gigabytes. The project aims to determine the best models usable
in the real world to predict airline ticket fares for non-stop flights across
the US. Therefore, good generalization capability and optimized processing
times are important measures for the model.
  We will discover key business insights utilizing feature importance and
discuss the process and tools used for our analysis. Four regression machine
learning algorithms were utilized: Random Forest, Gradient Boost Tree, Decision
Tree, and Factorization Machines utilizing Cross Validator and Training
Validator functions for assessing performance and generalization capability.