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Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#111

Post by ezekg »

wbeckler wrote: post #81
quartz wrote: post #6

Skyscanner also recently made it tougher to get at live airfare data through their API[1]. Sad to see providers disappear for this. Not sure what the alternatives are now. [1] https://support.business.skyscanner.net/hc/en-us/articles/21...

One alternative is Fareportal, which has a full featured API for flights with both search and booking ability. https://www.fareportallabs.com/Home/DownloadDocs#0 I'm happy to answer questions as I'm helping several companies switch over to Fareportal at the moment.

Thanks for the link. Definitely looks like a good alternative to QPX (and Skyscanner since they don’t like to respond to partner applications). There’s also https://www.kiwi.com, which seems to offer a nicely documented partner API.

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#113

Post by erichurkman »

paulie_a wrote: post #88
lotyrin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of my time spent being a customer to a real estate MLS. When industries traditionally rented access to information asymmetry, even if those rents have since diminished, there's a lingering cultural momentum not to "show your hand" by playing nice with information (in addition to these not being organizations with the insight and incentives aligned to be attractive or conducive to IT competence).

Ive worked with MLS data before. It was terrible. I am currently working with ACH, DDF and I am astounded that our financial system even operates. Because if there is one thing you want in payment processing, it's wildly innacurate and inconsistent data that is lacking documentation.

And for ACH, it's even worse: you assume success only in the absence of failure. It's shockingly bad.

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#114

Post by ernsheong »

ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #77
Frieshammer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day Google will shutdown Gmail. Finally then everyone will learn to ignore their non-Advertising services. It's for the best!

This has crossed my mind. I’m a G Suite customer (paid Google docs / gmail etc) and Google makes me nervous the way they shut things down constantly.

It’s paid. I’ve never heard of Google shutting down paid services.

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#115

Post by hchasestevens »

new_user224 wrote: post #89
npolet wrote: post #36

I was part of a team developing a travel product which needed huge amounts of data from flights to car rental... My god the travel industry is a mess in terms of accessible data. It was the biggest pain point. API's would randomly change structure, endpoints would stop working with unknown errors, data would be significantly different across companies for the same data etc... It was a shambles. Never again will I dev…

How did you integrate all the different schemas? RDF, some kind of rule engine, or plain Java, Python, ... ?

Having worked previously at a company that sounds very similar (maybe even the same one?), our approach was primarily using individually written scrapers and API integrations (when available) in Python, utilizing an underlying scraping framework that predated requests. As you might imagine, these integrations required constant maintenance and were often bug-prone, so much so that the company eventually found itself in the position of outsourcing the work... There were attempts to reduce maintenance through the use of a in-house DSL/rules engine, but ultimately, the range of integrations it was able to support was very limited, and the project was scrapped.

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#116

Post by un_montagnard »

helloguillecl wrote: post #16

Six months ago, I started developing a Flight Alerting service for QPX Express API. I was always skeptical as to how long would they keep this API running, since it was a byproduct of a previous acquisition. But I said to myself, wishfully thinking: Why would they shut down this and lose their clients trust in developing with their APIs? Sadly, I was again proven wrong.

I was going to release a side project based on QPX Express API that allows comparing prices for a flight in different countries. Guess I won't bother fixing the last details and will just add it to my list of never finished things.

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#117

Post by snuxoll »

tyingq wrote: post #59
npolet wrote: post #36

I was part of a team developing a travel product which needed huge amounts of data from flights to car rental... My god the travel industry is a mess in terms of accessible data. It was the biggest pain point. API's would randomly change structure, endpoints would stop working with unknown errors, data would be significantly different across companies for the same data etc... It was a shambles. Never again will I dev…

Didn't like OTA[1], eh? I don't know that other industries are much better though. Ask a healthcare IT person about HL7. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenTravel_Alliance

FUCK HL7! Holy shit, I’ll never get the time back I spent implementing our standard HL7 data extractor and all the other software needed to get that into our billing system. Our poor EDI team has the worst of it though, they’re the ones responsible for mapping all the edge cases various EMR’s (and their per-hospital customizations) into our standard formats.

HL7 claims to be a standard, but it’s a hell of a lot closer to JSON in terms of standardization (that is, a serialization format) than say ANSI X12 (an ugly but generally standard data interchange system).

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#118

Post by mgkimsal »

ernsheong wrote: post #114
ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has crossed my mind. I’m a G Suite customer (paid Google docs / gmail etc) and Google makes me nervous the way they shut things down constantly.

It’s paid. I’ve never heard of Google shutting down paid services.

google site search, but i'm sure there have been some others.

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#119

Post by jessriedel »

madeofpalk wrote: post #92
RestlessMind wrote: post #23

From [1]: "On April 8, 2011, the US Department of Justice approved the buyout (of ITA by Google). As part of the agreement, Google must license ITA software to other websites for five years." Now that five years are up, Google would want to deny competitors access to that data. Seems like a good startup opportunity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software

> Seems like a good startup opportunity. Last time this was brought up (2011 HN article IIRC), it was discussed how terribly organised the travel industry is and just how much Smart Work ITA did and how invaluable it was.

Relevant threads:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2424592

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2992660

(Algolia's HN search is invaluable: https://hn.algolia.com/ )

Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

#120

Post by rokhayakebe »

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #93
npolet wrote: post #36

I was part of a team developing a travel product which needed huge amounts of data from flights to car rental... My god the travel industry is a mess in terms of accessible data. It was the biggest pain point. API's would randomly change structure, endpoints would stop working with unknown errors, data would be significantly different across companies for the same data etc... It was a shambles. Never again will I dev…

The car industry is another industry whose data is a series of nightmares. There are a number of services that aggregate inventory data for dealers using them. Sounds great, right? Maybe, if they had halfway decent APIs. Multiple providers--with zero connection to one another, I checked quite carefully after becoming exasperated--somehow managed to independently come to the decision that the best way to make inventor…

You know I was thinking as I was reading you guys are crazy for having 641 blues. However I definitely see your point after clicking the links. These are entirely different colors, indeed.
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