Thoughts on the Current Airport Schedules API I Found

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4 min read

Hi everyone! Rime here with another aviation API review for you!

Last month, I talked about another API by this same provider, Aviyair which I was using to display past flight delays and cancellations. I’ve seen that my API key is valid for their current airport schedule API as well, so might as well share my thoughts on this one. I have seen so many apps and website features where you can view previous airport schedules, so I figured a lot many of you might be looking for something similar 🧐

Initially, this is similar to what I am trying to display on the app: basic, real-time airport schedule data where you can track current flight status and times. Today is May 21st, 2023 and I’ve got this real-time ss on FR24 to visualize what I have in mind as I find the UI appealing, but there are tons of other websites out there for inspiration, of course.


What This Actual Airport Schedule API Promises

I find Aviyair’s data quality just as good to build this display. Let’s dig more into what the raw data looks like 🔎

I’ve used this URL to get ORY’s current arrival schedule. I haven’t used any additional parameters to filter the complete current airport schedule data but just the obligatory ones (airport IATA code and schedule type) to get a 200 OK response:

https://data.aviyair.com/data/v1/liveschedule?key=apikey&airport_iata=ORY&type=arrival

I’ve received around 400 flights for the first time and realized it’s expanding as I make new API calls every 15 minutes or so. Meaning that older flights must be eliminated in the real-time airport schedules data feed as new flights are added. If you want to keep the window longer (like displaying 48 hours days of historical or more), I’d suggest displaying the saved data.

Of course, flight statuses in the past airport schedule data will also change as flights become active, land, etc. So for this purpose, saving the data until the flight status becomes “landed” makes sense to me.

Here’s one of the complete flight data in the past airport schedules API response. It is of flight KL2445 codeshared 8R7543:

{
"airline": {
"iataCode": "KL",
"icaoCode": "KLM",
"name": "KLM"
},
"arrival": {
"actualRunway": null,
"actualTime": null,
"baggage": "01",
"delay": "11",
"estimatedRunway": null,
"estimatedTime": "2023-05-21T13:31:00.000",
"gate": "03",
"iataCode": "ORY",
"icaoCode": "LFPO",
"scheduledTime": "2023-05-21T13:20:00.000",
"terminal": "3"
},
"codeshared": {
"airline": {
"iataCode": "8r",
"icaoCode": "aia",
"name": "amelia"
},
"flight": {
"iataNumber": "8r7543",
"icaoNumber": "aia7543",
"number": "7543"
}
},
"departure": {
"actualRunway": "2023-05-21T10:24:00.000",
"actualTime": "2023-05-21T10:24:00.000",
"baggage": null,
"delay": "35",
"estimatedRunway": "2023-05-21T10:24:00.000",
"estimatedTime": "2023-05-21T10:15:00.000",
"gate": "59",
"iataCode": "TUN",
"icaoCode": "DTTA",
"scheduledTime": "2023-05-21T09:50:00.000",
"terminal": "M"
},
"flight": {
"iataNumber": "KL2445",
"icaoNumber": "KLM2445",
"number": "2445"
},
"status": "active",
"type": "arrival"
}

Good to keep in mind: There are parameters to filter the complete real-time airport schedules data by the airline, flight status, departure/arrival airport, flight time or flight number. This way, you can build search features where your users can search for a specific flight as below:

Or you can simply display the historical times and status of a specific flight as below:

Of course, this would be way more convenient with a historical version of the current airport schedules API and Aviyair seems to have this also, but I will review it in another article.


Final Verdict on the Current Airport Schedules API and Getting an API Key

The uptime rate could be a tiny bit more frequent as I am getting new updates around only every 10-15 minutes. Other than that, this current airport schedules API meets every requirement I have in terms of real-time airport schedule data feed.

The way that it includes not only basics like departure/arrival airport, flight number, status, and times BUT ALSO estimated and actual times, runway times, baggage, terminal, gate and more, makes this real-time airport schedules API a good choice.

This is where I got my API key in case you also find this API interesting. The prices are reasonable for the amount of data you are getting + the data quality and support.

Next, I’m thinking of reviewing their historical API for the same purpose. Let me know if you happen to know any similar APIs that you’d like to share or what you think about this one! 🤓