Looking to create an aviation dashboard or an online flight tracker? If the answer is yes, then you can tap into an extensive set of aviation data, including real-time flight status, historical flights, schedules, airline routes, and airports as well as aircraft, and more. It also does it with a single simple and free API. Flight Tracking API uses a strong backbone of aviation data sources. The API delivers accurate details about any global flight at any stage. It is also accurate down to the minute.
AviationStack flight tracking API also uses a scalable cloud infrastructure. It is capable of handling any volume – from thousands of requests per month to millions per minute. Moreover, the AviationStack web service offers a free subscription plan to test and create your aviation data-based application. Another API which could be combined with this one is a weather data api. Let’s continue reading this blog post till the end.
Table of Contents
What are the Features of AviationStack API?
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Airplane lookup
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Aviation tax lookup
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Airline lookup
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City lookup
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Airport lookup
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Airline routes lookup
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Historical flight data
How To Use aviationstack API?
Using the aviationstack API is pretty simple. You make your requests to the REST API with a straightforward HTTP GET URL structure. It responds in lightweight JSON format.
After creating an account on AviationStack, you get your free API access key. Then, to connect to the API, you simply attach the access_key parameter with the key you get.
Here is a sample request URL and with its response
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https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/flights ? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY |
Example Response:
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{ "pagination": { "limit": 100, "offset": 0, "count": 100, "total": 1669022 }, "data": [ { "flight_date": "2019-12-12", "flight_status": "active", "departure": { "airport": "San Francisco International", "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles", "iata": "SFO", "icao": "KSFO", "terminal": "2", "gate": "D11", "delay": 13, "scheduled": "2019-12-12T04:20:00+00:00", "estimated": "2019-12-12T04:20:00+00:00", "actual": "2019-12-12T04:20:13+00:00", "estimated_runway": "2019-12-12T04:20:13+00:00", "actual_runway": "2019-12-12T04:20:13+00:00" }, "arrival": { "airport": "Dallas/Fort Worth International", "timezone": "America/Chicago", "iata": "DFW", "icao": "KDFW", "terminal": "A", "gate": "A22", "baggage": "A17", "delay": 0, "scheduled": "2019-12-12T04:20:00+00:00", "estimated": "2019-12-12T04:20:00+00:00", "actual": null, "estimated_runway": null, "actual_runway": null }, "airline": { "name": "American Airlines", "iata": "AA", "icao": "AAL" }, "flight": { "number": "1004", "iata": "AA1004", "icao": "AAL1004", "codeshared": null }, "aircraft": { "registration": "N160AN", "iata": "A321", "icao": "A321", "icao24": "A0F1BB" }, "live": { "updated": "2019-12-12T10:00:00+00:00", "latitude": 36.28560000, "longitude": -106.80700000, "altitude": 8846.820, "direction": 114.340, "speed_horizontal": 894.348, "speed_vertical": 1.188, "is_ground": false } }, [...] ] } |
Historical Flights, Airline Routes, Airports & more!
As we have said, the AviationStack web service has a set of API endpoints for different purposes. For instance, to get data about global airports, you can use the API’s airports endpoint. Similarly, you can use the airlines endpoint to get data about global airlines.
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https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/aircraft_types ? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY |
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https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/routes ? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY |
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https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/flights ? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY & flight_date = 2019-12-11 |
How To Create Cross-Platform App Using Delphi?
Using Embarcadero Delphi with the FireMonkey cross-platform native app development framework you can develop highly functional applications in under 30 seconds. Moreover, the FireMonkey App Low Code Wizard helps you create a multi-window app cross-platform app with minimum effort.
Flight Dashboard: FireMonkey App Low Code Wizard
Want to get your project started quickly? The FireMonkey App Low Code Wizard generates Delphi and FireMonkey powered cross-platform applications with different screens and database functionality in no time. Moreover, the generated code shows you how to use trending modern design and coding techniques around Delphi and FireMonkey.
Rest Debugger
If you want to integrate any RESTful web service into your Delphi FireMonkey application you can go with the REST Debugger. The REST Debugger is a tool that connects any type of RESTful web service. After successfully connecting to the web service, you can just click Copy Components and drop them to your Delphi project.
REST Debugger – JSON Root Element
Sound good to you? Get the Delphi Community Edition right now and install the FireMonkey Low Code Wizard from GetIt Package Manager to start quickly building multi-platform apps!
Learn to Download FMXALCW Rights
Open FireMonkey App Wizard
FireMonkey App Wizard – Select app screens
How To Visually Connect Data To UI Controls?
If you want to Visually connect your data to UI controls, take a look at our Delphi FireMonkey project structure.
Delphi FireMonkey Project Structure
As you can see, you can get real data from any endpoint in design time and see what it is like! In addition, there is no need to write code to represent the fetched data. You can just use the LiveBindings Designer.
LiveBindings Designer
Furthermore, we have added several lines of code to request any query from the endpoint which shows you how to customize request calls at runtime.
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procedure TNewFormFrame.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); begin inherited; RESTClient1.ResetToDefaults; RESTClient1.Accept := 'application/json'; RESTClient1.AcceptCharset := 'UTF-8, *;q=0.8'; RESTClient1.BaseURL := 'https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/airlines'; // pass given parameters for the URL RESTRequest1.Resource := Format('?access_key=%s&search=%s&limit=100', [Edit1.Text, Edit2.text]); RESTResponse1.ContentType := 'application/json'; RESTRequest1.Execute; end; |
App in action
Check out the full source code here.
Flight Dashboard:Conclusion
The AviationStack API is a great tool for creating aviation dashboards and online flight trackers. It provides a lot of useful information like real-time flight status, past flights, airline routes, and airport details. The API is accurate and can handle a large number of requests. It’s easy to use too – you just need to make a simple request with your access key. If you’re a developer looking to build apps related to aviation, the AviationStack API is definitely worth checking out!
Flight Dashboard: FAQs
1. What’s a flight dashboard?
A flight dashboard is like a digital map that shows real-time info about flights, like if they’re on time or delayed, where they’re going from and to, and which airline operates them.
2. What info can I see on a flight dashboard?
You can see if your flight is on time or delayed, when it’s supposed to leave and arrive, which gate it’s at, what kind of plane it is, and some even show weather info that might affect your flight.
3. How can a flight dashboard help me?
It helps you plan better by letting you know if your flight’s on time or if there are any changes. This way, you can be prepared and make other plans if needed.
4. Do all airports and airlines have flight dashboards?
Most big airports and airlines have them, but some smaller ones might not. It’s good to check with your airline or airport to see what info they provide.
Hope you find the AviationStack API useful! Head over now and get your free subscription plan!
