If you’ve been looking for the best flight or aviation data API for your next application, then you’ve come to the right place.
There was a time when travel companies had to build their application from scratch, which would take a lot of money and time. Today, we have flight data and other travel solution APIs that can collect and process data provided by CRM systems. It allows you to seamlessly connect to this data without messing around with any additional coding.
You can straightaway purchase the license and start using it on your applications. This article will show you some of the best flight data APIs that are around.
Before I go on to list those, here’s how using APIs can help your business.
Wide range of options
By opting to use API to build your travel application, you’re opening your avenues to a lot more opportunities such as travel booking, flight tracking and flight lookup rather than building just one or two of those. APIs give you a lot more functions within a single roof.
Cost-effective
You probably know this already, but it’s worth mentioning it again – APIs can ridiculously save you a lot of money while offering more functionality. Most of the APIs come bundled with a ton of features for a single affordable price.
Automation
Using APIs means automating that entire set of tasks, without relying on people. In return, it cuts down cost, time, and effort massively. It is a fast approach to completing the task with minimum resources.
Aviationstack
With over 250 countries and 13,000 airlines, Aviationstack provides accurate real-time flight status and global aviation data. It is trusted by over 5,000 companies, mostly because of their reliant API service. You get access to data such as:
- Historical flights
- Schedules
- Airline routes
- Airports
- Aircrafts
- City lookup
- Country lookup
- Aviation tax lookup
With their robust infrastructure, you can make millions of requests per minute without any hassle. For their free plan, you get up to 500 requests/month for free, and you can upgrade any time to their paid plans starting at just $29.99/month.
FlightAware
FlightAware’s APIs support every programming language so you can be sure it’ll work with your preferred option. They have two different flight data APIs:
- FlightXML
- FlightAware Firehose
FlightXML is a query-based API that is responsible for gathering real-time flight tracking data and recent historical data sets. I’d say it’s pretty suitable if your needs aren’t that big.
On the other hand, FlightAware Firehose is live streaming JSON data feed over TCP with SSL/TLS. It is highly recommended for huge data solutions. It provides surface positions and aircraft weather reports, which FlightXML doesn’t.
But both are very different, and it all boils down to your requirements. You can try out their sample before buying.
OpenSky
Been in the game since 2013, OpenSky is another reliable option for incorporating flight data API into your system. It can capture live and as well as partially historical data. Also, it can be used with any language that goes well with JSON-based REST APIs.
This one’s completely free and open-source.
Cirium Flight Stats
Cirium Flight Stats offers a ton of different flight data APIs that can help make your applications a powerhouse when it comes to providing great travel experience.
Their “Flex’ API includes these services:
- Flight status and tracking
- Historical flight status
- Schedule
- Connections
- Airlines
- Airports
- Flight features
- Weather
They’ve also recently introduced their new set of API called Aircraft & Fleets that throws up extensive details about certain Aircraft.
Trawex
Flexible, scalable, and easy to integrate, Trawex’s set of travel APIs can help you build your next travel website or app with ease. Once you incorporate their API into your system, you can offer some really unbeatable flight booking deals to your customers.
No matter if you’re integrating the API to a new application or an already functioning one, the process is guaranteed to be smooth. You can request for a demo and see for yourself.
Flightslogic
Flightslogic is one of the leading platforms for global airfares, thanks to its vast offering and valuable service. It has over 700 airlines, 200 LCCs, 180 countries, and 1000 happy customers. I genuinely believe this is an excellent option because they’ve been awarded the “Best Flight API of 2019”. There is literally no other validation needed.
Their booking system is packed with the best rates on airfares, and I am sure you’d want to offer that to your customers.
OAG Flight Status Data
With accurate and reliable flight data that is real-time, OAG’s flight status data can literally “save the day.” Their alerts are super quick and timely, which will keep your customers in sync with their flights.
With the use of their API, you can provide a variety of information to your customers, such as:
- Flight delays, cancellations, and changes
- Current weather and forecast
- Historical flight data
There’s a lot more to it, and you can try it out by requesting a free demo.
Aviation Edge
Collects data from hundreds of different trusted sources like official authorities, airlines, and airports, Aviation Edge is excellent when it comes to accuracy. They have about six different flight APIs, which are:
- Flight tracker
- Airport schedules
- Airline routes
- Nearby airports
- Autocomplete for airport and city names
- Aviation databases
You can make use of their free API or try out a sample of the premium one.
Skyscanner Travel APIs
Whether you’re building an app or a website, Skyscanner’s Travel APIs can directly get you connected to the precise flight data you need to provide your customers with an unmatched experience. From the best deals on flights, hotels to even car hire.
Here are some of the brilliant features of this API:
- Advanced search that can even understand long-form queries
- Diverse geo formats
- Real-time streaming of prices
- RESTful API format with JSON and XML responses available
You can directly contact them to request access.
AeroDataBox
Managed through the RapidAPI platform, AeroDataBox offers a wide range of travel APIs that can be easily integrated into your applications. Each of them has different and unique features, and it’s totally worth checking them out.
AeroDataBox’s data quality might not be the best and accurate at times, as they’re offering very limited data as compared to the big ones out there. However, that doesn’t make them any less useful. If you’re planning to build a small aviation application, then you can surely go for it.
Conclusion
I hope with the use of flight data API; you can build your own travel application without having to start from scratch and shelling out a huge sum of money.
