Take Off With aviationstack’s Real-Time Flight API

In our increasingly global world, people travel by airplane…a lot. With rapid turnaround times, unpredictable weather, and unexpected delays, airlines both domestic and international frequently adjust their flight schedules to keep us moving. If you’re building a website, a progressive web app, or even a native app that involves any kind of travel, the last […]

Why Track Flights

Let’s say you’re building a ride-booking app, you absolutely want to be able to track flights in order to minimise disruption, coordinate with drivers right across the fleet, and maximise your profits. Or imagine you’re building a website for a train operator, wouldn’t it be nice to let passengers know whether they’re going to make their connecting flight. And of course, if you’re operating an airline it’s common sense that your users will benefit from this kind of rich data.

But companies that service airline customers aren’t the only ones that benefit from tracking airplanes. If you’re running any kind of business that people may travel to, whether that’s a hotel in Madrid, or a tech conference in Las Vegas, showing people their flight options is one way to remove friction when potential attendees are deciding whether to purchase a ticket.

Sometimes, people need to travel at a moment’s notice, and on unfamiliar routes. It may be that there are unexpectedly great waves off the coast of Big Sur; it might be that a bird, previously thought extinct has been spotted in Iceland; it might be that you’ve accidentally left your son Kevin at home in Chicago while you flew to Paris for the holidays. Whatever niche-interest your site or app caters to, if travel’s involved, then a flight tracker is essential.

Why Use aviationstack

If you’re comparing flight data APIs, then here are a few of the reasons we think aviationstack deserves to be at the top of your shortlist:

[pullquote]more than 13,000 airlines are represented across over 10,000 airports[/pullquote]

Firstly, aviationstack’s data is amongst the most extensive available, because it’s drawn from high-quality sources. Using aviationstack you can easily look up flights across airports, cities, and countries; you can check historical flight data; you can even check live flights in real-time. The API covers over 9,000 cities in more than 250 countries; over 19,000 airplanes are divided into more than 300 different types; more than 13,000 airlines are represented across over 10,000 airports. For comprehensive data, aviationstack is hard to beat.

Secondly, aviationstack’s data is accurate to the minute. Many of us get a little anxious when we travel, not least when we’re rushing to catch a connecting flight. When your app or site is providing advice and information to potentially fraught customers, accurate information is invaluable, and can often transform a stressful situation into an exceptional user experience that wins you a loyal customer for life.

Thirdly, aviationstack is built on an incredibly reliable infrastructure. It’s owned and operated by apilayer, one of the best-known names in APIs, which means you can be confident that the API won’t buckle under the pressure. The API is incredibly simple to access, with code examples provided in PHP, Python, Go, Ruby, Nodejs, and even jQuery. It’s so simple that even novice front-end coders will get it up and running quickly, without any difficulty.

Last, and by no means least, aviationstack offers an entirely free plan that grants you 500 requests to the API per month, with full aviation, and real-time flight data. Which means you can try it out with zero risk. Once you’re happy, subscriptions start from just $39.99 (billed annually) and you can cancel at any time.