Some pairs of cities in a country are connected with one-directional direct flights (between any two cities, there is at most one flight).
We say that a city A is accessible for a city B if one may reach the city A starting at B (perhaps with zero flights or more than one flight in a chain). Assume that for any two cities P and Q there exists a city R for which each of P and Q is accessible. Prove that there exists a city for which every city is accessible. (V. Dolnikov)
Solution
Choose the city with a maximal number of cities accessible from it.
First solution. Number all the cities in the country as . By the condition, there exists a city for which both and are accessible. Next, the cities and are accessible for some city . Since from one can reach and , they are also accessible for . Continuing in the same way, we eventually find that there exists a city for which and are accessible. Then for , the cities are also accessible, since one can reach them via .
Second solution. Consider a city for which the maximal number of cities are accessible (if there are several such cities, pick any one of them). Suppose that some city is not accessible for . Then, by the condition, there exists a city for which both and are accessible. But then for , is accessible, as well as all the cities accessible for . This contradicts the choice of ; therefore, all cities are accessible for .