Put the parts together and realized the flight schedule related to where the pegs should go. Used an atlas and charted all the locations in order but no luck. Finally got fed up and checked a walkthrough. Other than pure fanatical trial and error how would someone figure out where to start? After the first line is in, the rest kind of fall into place but there are 16 possibilities for the first position times 15 for the second. That is a lot of possibilities to guarantee finding the first one.

some puzzles confuse everyone, thank god for walkthroughs

After playing that game and pondering over that puzzle a number of times, and consulting shitloads of walkthroughs, I finally figured, there is a logical approach to the solution; the map and the timetable is the main clue, as they refer to which ones to start with, and which direction and distance the pegs should be set. Ofcourse, I only had this apiphany in the middle of solving the box following a walkthough, but I finished it without :)

Well, the short answer is that Calcutta is exactly due south of Urumqi, and neither city has the little star mark, so you'd look for a pair of holes on the box that are due north and south of each other, and don't have star marks on them, then start with the south one.

Of course, coming to the realization that the holes are arranged not in direct relation to the map, but the pairs of matched holes are arranged in relation to their corresponding city's location to each other...that's a different story.