Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 197 posts

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

#171

Post by wbeckler »

redindian75 wrote: post #122
wbeckler wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anybody looking for an alternative, there 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.

Do u have Gate information for live flights? I am looking for Gate information & Flight schedules by airport. Ex: I want to be able to query incoming/outgoing flights to Gate-A-10 in ATL today. ------------- Query to: find where [Flight DL123] is going next. [ATL-LAX] -> Landing in 'Gate 10' in LAX going next to.... [LAX-MIA] -> Landing in 'Gate A1' in MIA going next to.... [MIA-JFK] -> Landing in 'Gate 1', Terminal…

Fareportal handles bookings in advance, not really live flight data.

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

#172

Post by wbeckler »

vbo wrote: post #156
wbeckler wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anybody looking for an alternative, there 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.

Looks good. I researched flight data suppliers & GDS companies recently for a side project and found them either very expensive (QPX falls in this category - having to pay several cents per query makes it virtually impossible to do anything creative) or lacking coverage for LCCs in Europe, which is my target market. So naturally I'm quite impressed with Fareportal and will give it a try. I did do a quick search on Ch…

It's very painful to redistribute Ryanair, especially if they don't want you to. They even have captchas on their search pages to block scrapers.

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

#173

Post by yesiamyourdad »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #141
closeparen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>somehow managed to independently come to the decision that the best way to make inventory data available was to push large CSV files to an FTP server you setup. Somehow this is indeed a standard for data transfers between non-tech companies. (The ones that are sophisticated enough not to use fax or email attachments).

I worked on a team at Microsoft that did the CSV over FTP thing in 2013. So some tech companies do it as well. ;)

My employer has a scheduled job that downloads a CSV over FTP thing at 6PM everyday. This is in adtech, with a company that's about 5 years old.

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

#174

Post by anticodon »

bovermyer wrote: post #164
rdslw wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me a few google employers posts on HN responding to the usual 'google closes products often': we dont, and we never closed a business products, only unimportant consumer ones. Yeah, sure. Google is heading Microsoft 199x way - fastly becoming public enemy no 1.

Cute language. So just to be clear, you're putting Google ahead of North Korea, ISIS, et al on the list of threats to humanity?

Why is North Korea a threat to humanity?

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

#175

Post by djsumdog »

pc86 wrote: post #165
bovermyer wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cute language. So just to be clear, you're putting Google ahead of North Korea, ISIS, et al on the list of threats to humanity?

I think it's odd to even include ISIS on any list of "threats to humanity." How many orders of magnitude could more damage could Google do by accident compared to ISIS?

Not even mentioning ISIS was created by the CIA. The US is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, but private internet megacorps are the biggest threat to freedom of speech. They're both pretty bad threats, just in very different ways.

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

#176

Post by FreezerburnV »

danvoell wrote: post #11
OzzyB wrote: post #10

So is this a new opportunity for someone to fill this need, or this is a really hard service to offer? As per other comments: doesn't seem to be much choice in the space anymore.

Hard service to offer. The guy who originally built this and sold it to Google has posted on HN a few times about the intricacies of the industry.

As someone who worked with the guy being mentioned and has heard some of the stories: It is indeed INCREDIBLY difficult to create this service, for a multitude of reasons. Ones that I can remember off the top of my head: - Every company with flight information is insanely possessive of this information. It can take a long time to actually gain access to it. - The information might be stored on literal magnetic tape, so you need to have a reader for that to even access flight information. (and they're not cheap) - The rules for everything are insane, and completely different across every flight provider. Stuff like a ticket number/ID/whatever it was has complex rules built into it to understand what they mean. - The search space for figuring out an optimal flight from Point A to Point B is VERY complex. He described it as almost driving their most talented engineer insane from trying to figure out how to optimize the search and make it actually work well. (and that doesn't even take into account finding the return flight as well)

I'm sure there were other things mentioned, but those are the ones I remember. If you want to try to disrupt this space, you'd have to be prepared to invest some good capital into just getting started, on top of actually physically flying to the people who can give you the information you need in order to gain access to it. It will not be easy, and it will not be quick. There's a reason ITA changed the game at the time.

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

#177

Post by htrp »

s17n wrote: post #134
specialp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: If it is not resulting in you transferring more data from yourself or others to Google to profit off of, it is not going to stick around long. Google doesn't seem interested in running paid businesses besides advertising no matter how much you are paying them.

Google is definitely interested in "paid businesses". What they aren't interested in is businesses under a billion* dollars. *Made up and likely exaggerated number

Actually true... Google had amazing robot grasper arms once upon a time. These were much better than anything that was in industry.

The team got killed because it wasn't a "toothbrush test" business

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

#178

Post by DannyB2 »

anticodon wrote: post #174
bovermyer wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cute language. So just to be clear, you're putting Google ahead of North Korea, ISIS, et al on the list of threats to humanity?

Why is North Korea a threat to humanity?

A possibility exists that North Korea might be able to bait someone into a nuclear war.

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

#179

Post by orf »

CydeWeys wrote: post #168
lightbyte wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is ISIS top 2 on your list of threats to humanity? They are at best a regional threat. Google can do considerably more damage on a global scale.

They literally just killed eight people on a path that I bike down all the time. Your comment is poorly timed. Also, I can't take you seriously when you're saying that Google can do considerably more global damage than IS. Think a little bit more before speaking. IS has directly been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and many more injuries, and has severely curtailed the rights of millions of people in…

> IS has directly been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and many more injuries

So has the USA, and likely all current first-world countries. Should the USA not be #1 on the threats to humanity? Actually, come to think of it, drinking has been directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and many more injuries. Maybe that should be #2?

Your list of threats is just the current round of scare mongering topics. Noticeably lacking are actual threats, like climate change and the rise of nationalism. And yes, a company that controls as much information (and access to that information) can be very very dangerous.

Post reply on HN