A new airlines company is planning to start operations in a country. The company has identified ten different cities which they plan to connect through their network to start with. The flight duration between any pair of cities will be less than one hour. To start operations, the company has to decide on a daily schedule.
The underlying principle that they are working on is the following:
Any person staying in any of these 10 cities should be able to make a trip to any other city in the morning and should be able to return by the evening of the same day.
Suppose three of the ten cities are to be developed as hubs. A hub is a city which is connected with every other city by direct flights each way, both in the morning as well as in the evening. The only direct flights which will be scheduled are originating and/or terminating in one of the hubs. Then the minimum number of direct flights that need to be scheduled so that the underlying principle of the airline to serve all the ten cities is met without visiting more than one hub during one trip is:
From each hub, there will be flights to 7 cities. So total total number of flights originating or terminating at each hub = 7*4 = 28. For all three hubs, it would be 28*3 = 84
There are three hubs in total. Each hub must also be interconnected. The total number of flights between any two hubs will be 4. For three hubs it will be 12.
Hence, the required number will be 84 + 12 = 96.
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