Interesting! In addition to the links already shared, I use OpenTravelData, available at https://github.com/opentraveldata/opentraveldata, which consolidates airport information from different sources, but also data on aircrafts, airlines, etc.
OpenFlights – airport and airline data
51–60 of 62 posts
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#52Why don't airlines provide a good free API for flights and reservations? I would think they would want developers to help make accessing their offerings and buying them easier.
Why would they? They prefer to keep their pricing structure secret and earn booking fees.
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many (most?) standards bodies charge for their standards documents and data feeds. There are obviously costs associated with running IATA; I don't see why they should be obliged to provide their data for free, especially when the typical user of such data is likely to build a for-profit business on top of it. I don't think IATA actually assigns the codes, but rather aggregates them. In the US, the FAA assigns the air…
I think the FAA will only assign the four letter ICAO code. The 3 letter IATA code is assigned by them directly: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/1277d04d575843dc80a3f613d...
That’s a good point. The US has a somewhat unique system there. I’ve been googling this and I can find any definitive reference. All I can turn up is that the application for an IATA code is supposed to be made by an an airline or CSR, not the airport itself. What I can’t find is an explanation for the “coincidence” of the K prefix.
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you tell me the FAA code for a US airport, I can tell you the IATA code without a database lookup and without checking with IATA.
C83 Good luck
I’d have returned that it has no IATA code assigned, which appears to be correct from spot-checking it on several online sites.
I’m guessing you know that’s not correct or you’d have not asked, so what is it?
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#55Why don't airlines provide a good free API for flights and reservations? I would think they would want developers to help make accessing their offerings and buying them easier.
Why would they? They prefer to keep their pricing structure secret and earn booking fees.
My intuition is that if you are selling something (like a flight) then you would want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy. Getting the data out as widely as possible would seem to help with that.
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#56Why don't airlines provide a good free API for flights and reservations? I would think they would want developers to help make accessing their offerings and buying them easier.
Skiplagged.com (and the legal issues around it) is a good example of why they may not want that data easily accessible. But other than that, I assume there's a lot of money in partnerships with sites like Kayak and Priceline. But I'm not even sure which direction that money flows.
I also don't understand why they objected to skiplagged. If they make money on the flight if I'm in the seat, wouldn't they make slightly more (saving on fuel) if I'm not on it? Why would they care? Plus, the slightly less populated flight might be a bit more pleasant to the passengers sitting nearby where the missing person would've sat.
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would they? They prefer to keep their pricing structure secret and earn booking fees.
My intuition is that if you are selling something (like a flight) then you would want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy. Getting the data out as widely as possible would seem to help with that.
They are selling cheaper and more expensive tickets. They have cheaper options for price-sensitive customers, but they don't want to make them easy to find for everybody.
They have their own ticket shop online. So they prefer if people buy from there.
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#58typing in Toronto does not return anything, neither do many of the smaller airport ICAO I trired.
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#59In the past I wanted to build a system that checks flight paths and will tell you what kind of plane noise you can expect in the area where you want to buy a house.
Anyone build it yet/ needs something like this?
Re: OpenFlights – airport and airline data
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Skiplagged.com (and the legal issues around it) is a good example of why they may not want that data easily accessible. But other than that, I assume there's a lot of money in partnerships with sites like Kayak and Priceline. But I'm not even sure which direction that money flows.
I also don't understand why they objected to skiplagged. If they make money on the flight if I'm in the seat, wouldn't they make slightly more (saving on fuel) if I'm not on it? Why would they care? Plus, the slightly less populated flight might be a bit more pleasant to the passengers sitting nearby where the missing person would've sat.
Because If you didn't use it you'd be paying more money for the flight you did take.
Also they don't care about giving coach passengers a pleasant experience. They'd remove the seats altogether if they could.