Tracking flight data manually is time-consuming. If you’re building travel apps, monitoring corporate flights, or automating customer notifications, you need real-time aviation data flowing directly into your workflows. The traditional approach requires custom API integration, error handling, and constant maintenance overhead.
Aviationstack delivers real-time flight tracking with updates delayed by just 30 to 60 seconds, covering more than 10,000 airports across 250+ countries and 13,000+ airlines. You get detailed data including flight status, delays, gate assignments, terminal information, aircraft details, and live GPS coordinates for airborne flights. The API also provides historical flight data and airline route information updated every 24 hours.
Zapier changed the automation game by connecting Aviationstack’s aviation API with 8,000+ apps, no backend code required. You can trigger workflows based on flight events like departures, arrivals, delays, and gate changes, then push that data to your CRM, notification systems, or customer support tools automatically. Instead of writing custom integrations, you build automated workflows through Zapier’s visual interface.
This guide walks through connecting Aviationstack’s real-time flight data API to Zapier’s automation platform. You’ll learn how to set up triggers, filter flight data, and build practical workflows that save development time while delivering accurate flight information to your users.
Table of Contents
You will learn:
- Connect Aviationstack API to Zapier and automate flight data without backend code or server infrastructure.
- Build Zaps that pull real-time flight status, delays, gate changes, and aircraft positions from 13,000+ airlines using Schedule triggers.
- Write Python code to fetch flight data and extract departure times, airline details, and status updates from Aviationstack’s REST API.
- Send automated email alerts with flight information using Gmail and 8,000+ Zapier app integrations.
What is Aviationstack & Why Use It with Zapier?
Aviationstack is a REST API that gives you access to live flight status, historical flight records, airline routes, airport data, and aircraft information. The platform processes real-time tracking with updates delayed by only 30 to 60 seconds, covering global aviation operations across 250+ countries. It’s built for developers who need reliable aviation data without managing complex server infrastructure or data pipelines.
Key Capabilities
- Real-time flight tracking: Track live latitude/longitude coordinates, altitude, speed, and flight status updates including active, landed, delayed, and cancelled flights.
- Historical flight data: Query past flights up to 3 months for trend analysis, reporting, and building data-driven aviation applications.
- Global coverage: Access data for 10,000+ airports, 19,000+ aircraft, 13,000+ airlines, 300+ aircraft types, 9,000+ cities, and 250+ countries.
- Structured data: Returns JSON responses with departure/arrival details, delay information, terminal/gate assignments, and aircraft registration numbers.
- HTTPS encryption: Industry-standard 256-bit SSL encryption protects all API requests across all subscription plans.
Endpoints
- Real-Time Flights: GET https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/flights?access_key=YOUR_KEY retrieves live flight data with optional filters for status, airline, route, departure airport, arrival airport, and delay thresholds.
- Flight by Number: GET https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/flights?access_key=YOUR_KEY&flight_iata=UA2402 tracks a specific flight using its IATA or ICAO code and returns detailed status including current position and gate information.
- Airport Data: GET https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/airports?access_key=YOUR_KEY provides complete airport information including codes, names, cities, countries, timezone, and geographic coordinates.
- Airline Routes: GET https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/routes?access_key=YOUR_KEY&dep_iata=JFK&arr_iata=LAX returns all available routes between two airports with airline and aircraft details.
Why Integrate with Zapier?
Zapier is a no-code automation platform that connects over 8,000 apps through visual workflows called Zaps. Instead of writing custom integrations for each tool in your stack, you build workflows by selecting triggers and actions through Zapier’s interface. The platform handles all the backend infrastructure, letting you focus on business logic rather than maintaining API connections, error handling, and data transformations.
Raw API Access Gives You Flexibility, But Zapier Eliminates the Need For:
- Polling infrastructure: Zapier handles scheduled polling every 1 to 15 minutes depending on your plan, removing the need to check flight status repeatedly.
- Webhook servers: You don’t need to deploy endpoints to receive real-time updates because Zapier provides unique webhook URLs that accept POST requests from any API.
- Error handling logic: Zapier automatically manages retries with throttled errors, implements back-off schedules when rate limits are hit, and sends error notifications without requiring custom code.
- Multi-app orchestration: Push flight data to Gmail, Slack, Google Sheets, SMS gateways, or CRMs in minutes by chaining actions together in multi-step Zaps.
Step 1: Get Your Aviationstack API Key
Creating Your Account
- Navigate to https://aviationstack.com/ and locate the signup option on the homepage.
- Click “Sign Up Free” or “Get API Key” to start creating your account.
- Enter your email address, create a password, and verify your email to activate your account.
Select a Plan
- Free: 100 requests per month with access to real-time flight data and HTTPS encryption for personal projects.
- Basic: 10,000 requests per month at $49.99, includes historical flight data (3 months back), airline route information, and a commercial license.
- Professional: 50,000 requests per month at $149.99, adds increased pagination limits (up to 1,000 results vs 100 on lower tiers) and priority support.
Locating Your API Key
After signup, you’ll be redirected to your Dashboard where your unique API access key is displayed immediately.
You can regenerate a new key anytime from your Account Dashboard if your current key gets compromised.
Step 2: Set Up Your Zapier Account
Creating a Zapier Account
- Go to https://zapier.com/sign-up to setup your account.
- Sign up with email or OAuth providers like Google for faster access to your dashboard.
- Complete the onboarding questionnaire about your role and automation goals, or skip this step to jump straight into building your first Zap.
Understanding Zapier Plans
- Free: 100 tasks per month with single-step Zaps that check for updates every 15 minutes, perfect for testing workflows before scaling.
- Professional ($29.99/month): 750 tasks per month with multi-step Zaps that let you chain multiple actions together, plus access to premium app integrations and faster update intervals.
- Team ($103.50/month): 2,000 tasks per month with advanced features like paths for conditional logic, shared folders for collaboration, and priority support for mission-critical automations.
What’s a “Task”?
- Every action Zapier performs counts as 1 task, which determines your monthly usage limit.
- API call to Aviationstack counts as 1 task each time your Zap requests flight data.
- Sending an email through Gmail or another email service counts as 1 task per message sent.
- Writing to Google Sheets adds 1 task to your count every time a new row is created.
Example: A 3-step Zap (Trigger checking Aviationstack → Filter flight data → Send email) equals 2 tasks per run because triggers don’t count against your task limit, only actions do.
Step 3: Create Your First Zap
Starting a New Zap
From your Zapier dashboard, click “Create Zap” in the top right corner or hover over the left sidebar menu and select the option to start building.
You’ll enter the Zap Editor with two main steps visible: Trigger (the event that starts your automation) and Action (what happens after the trigger fires).
When you open the Zap Editor, you’ll notice Zapier Copilot available at the top of the interface. This AI-powered tool lets you describe your workflow in plain English, and it will automatically build the automation flow for you. For example, you could type “Pull flight data from Aviationstack API every hour and send it to Google Sheets,” and Copilot will set up the triggers and actions. However, this guide will walk you through the manual approach so you understand exactly how each component works
Choosing a Trigger
Since Aviationstack doesn’t have a native Zapier app, you’ll use a Schedule trigger to poll the API at regular intervals for flight data updates.
- Click “Trigger” in the Zap Editor to begin selecting your automation starting point.
- Search for and “Flow control” and select “Schedule” from the list of built-in Zapier apps.
Then in the trigger event choose “Every Day” or “Every Hour” depending on your use case and how frequently you need flight updates.
Configure your schedule settings:
- Time of day: Set to 9:00 AM if you want daily flight summaries delivered at a consistent morning time.
- Timezone: Select your local timezone to ensure the schedule runs at the correct time for your location.
- Click “Continue” to proceed to the testing phase.
Test the trigger by clicking the test button, which should return the current timestamp confirming your schedule is set up correctly.
Why Schedule Trigger?
Aviationstack’s real-time endpoint provides live flight status data, but it doesn’t push updates automatically to external systems.
- A scheduled trigger lets you poll for flight updates every X hours or minutes, checking the API on your defined schedule.
- Check if tracked flights have delays, gate changes, or status updates since the last poll.
- Generate daily flight reports or summaries that compile multiple flight statuses into one automated workflow.
Rate Limit Management:
- Every 15 minutes: Results in 96 API calls per day (2,880 per month), which exceeds the Aviationstack Free plan limit of 100 requests per month.
- Every hour: Creates 24 API calls per day (720 per month), which is suitable if you have Aviationstack’s Basic plan (10,000 requests/month) but still exceeds the Free plan.
- Daily: Generates just 1 API call per day (30 per month), making this the best option for flight summaries if you’re using both Aviationstack and Zapier’s free tiers.
Step 4: Connect to Aviationstack API Using Code by Zapier
Adding Code by Zapier Action
- Click the “+” icon below your Schedule trigger to add an action step to your workflow.
- Search for “Code by Zapier” in the app search field and select it from the results.
- In action event select “Run Python” from the event dropdown menu.
- Click “Continue” to proceed to the code editor interface.
Configure and Writing the API Request
Here’s a production-ready Python script to fetch flight data from Aviationstack:
import requests
# Your API key from Step 1
API_KEY = 'YOUR_AVIATIONSTACK_API_KEY'
# Query specific flight
params = {
'access_key': API_KEY,
'flight_iata': 'UA2402',
'limit': 1
}
# Make API call
response = requests.get('https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/flights', params=params)
data = response.json()
# Extract flight data
if data.get('data'):
flight = data['data'][0]
return {
'flight_number': flight['flight']['iata'],
'status': flight['flight_status'],
'departure_airport': flight['departure']['airport'],
'departure_delay': flight['departure'].get('delay', 0),
'arrival_airport': flight['arrival']['airport'],
'arrival_delay': flight['arrival'].get('delay', 0),
'airline': flight['airline']['name']
}
else:
return {'error': 'No flight found'}
Now use the code and place it in the configure window.
This script uses the requests library (already included in Zapier’s Python environment) to call Aviationstack’s flights endpoint. The code extracts key flight details like airline name, departure/arrival airports, flight status, and scheduled times from the JSON response. Error handling ensures your Zap won’t break if the API returns an error or times out.
Testing the Action
- Click “Test action” in the Zapier interface to execute your Python code with live data.
- Zapier executes your Python script and displays the returned output dictionary in the test results panel.
Step 5: Send the Data to Gmail
Now that you’ve pulled flight data from Aviationstack, you can connect it to any app in your workflow. Gmail is a practical starting point for sending flight notifications, alerts, or daily summaries directly to your inbox.
Adding the Gmail Action
- Click the “+” icon below your Code by Zapier step to add another action.
- Search for “Gmail” in the app search field and select it from the results.
- Choose “Send Email” from the Event dropdown menu to compose and send automated emails.
- Click “Continue” and connect your Gmail account by logging in with OAuth authentication when prompted.
Configure Email Settings
- To: Enter your recipient email address like your-email@example.com.
- Subject: Create a dynamic subject line using flight data from your Code step, for example: Flight Alert.
- Body: Build your email content by combining typed text with dynamic fields from the Code by Zapier output.
Here’s an example email body structure:
Flight {{flight_number}} ({{airline}}) status update:
Status: {{status}}
Delay: {{departure_delay}} minutes
{{departure_airport}} → {{arrival_airport}}
Select fields like flight_number, airline, departure_airport, arrival_airport, flight_status, departure_time, and arrival_time that you extracted in your Python code.
Testing Your Email
- Click “Continue” after configuring all email fields.
- Click “Test step” to send a real email to the address you specified using live data from your Aviationstack API call.
Check your Gmail inbox to verify the email arrived with correctly formatted flight information. While email notifications work for simple alerts, you can also build custom dashboards that display live flight positions. Learn how to build a real-time flight tracking app using Aviationstack and React for more advance application.
Here is the complete zapier automation.
Use Cases of Aviationstack
Aviationstack powers aviation data across thousands of companies worldwide. Here are the most common use cases:
- Travel Booking Platforms: Integrate real-time flight schedules and route data into booking engines for airlines and Online Travel Agencies, displaying accurate departure times and airline details for customer comparison.
- Flight Status Notification Systems: Build automated alert systems that monitor flight delays, cancellations, and gate changes, sending proactive notifications via email, SMS, or push notifications to travelers and corporate travel managers. For a complete implementation guide with webhook architecture and database design, check out building an automated flight status notification system with Aviationstack.
- Flight Tracking & Visualization Apps: Create real-time tracking dashboards showing live aircraft positions, altitude, speed, and flight paths, popular among aviation enthusiasts and logistics companies monitoring cargo.
- Corporate Travel Management: Monitor executive flights, track delays automatically, and coordinate ground transportation based on real-time arrival information for business travel departments.
- Airport Operations & Logistics: Power airport information displays, coordinate ground crew operations, and manage baggage handling with comprehensive flight data and terminal assignments.
- Aviation Analytics & Reporting: Analyze historical flight data up to 3 months back for trend analysis, route optimization, and business intelligence dashboards tracking airline performance and airport congestion.
Conclusion
Integrating Aviationstack with Zapier unlocks powerful, no-code flight automation for developers and businesses. By combining Aviationstack’s real-time aviation data covering 13,000+ airlines with Zapier’s 8,000+ app ecosystem, you can build production-ready workflows in hours instead of weeks.
Key Takeaways
- No backend required: Use Code by Zapier for direct API integration without deploying servers or managing infrastructure.
- Scalable architecture: Start with free tiers offering 100 API requests and 100 tasks per month, then scale to enterprise-grade automation as your needs grow.
- Real-world applications: Build flight delay notifications, tracking dashboards, SMS alerts, email summaries, and customer service integrations.
- Cost-efficient: Optimize API calls and Zapier tasks to minimize expenses while maximizing value by choosing the right polling frequency for your use case.
Next Steps
- Sign up for Aviationstack and get your API key to start pulling flight data.
- Create a Zapier account and build your first Zap using the steps outlined in this guide.
- Implement one of the working examples from this guide, starting with daily flight summaries before moving to real-time tracking.
- Explore advanced implementations like Notification systems and React tracking dashboards to build production-grade aviation apps.
- APILayer offers dedicated onboarding, custom integrations, and Platinum Support with SLA guarantees for high-volume users. The platform also provides multiple APIs like IPStack for geolocation, Weatherstack for weather data, Numverify for phone validation, Fixer for currency exchange rates, and Marketstack for stock market data. Check out APILayer products and build something amazing.
FAQs
1. Can I use Aviationstack’s free plan with Zapier’s free tier?
Yes, but you’re limited to 100 API requests per month from Aviationstack and 100 Zapier tasks monthly, which allows approximately 3 automated flight checks per day if you set your Schedule trigger to run daily.
2. How do I get real-time flight updates instead of scheduled polling?
Aviationstack doesn’t support webhooks, so you’ll need to use Zapier’s Schedule trigger with shorter intervals (every 15 minutes on paid plans) or upgrade to Zapier’s premium plans that support faster polling frequencies for near-real-time automation.
3. What happens if my Aviationstack API key gets rate-limited?
Zapier’s error handling will retry failed requests automatically with exponential backoff, but you’ll receive email notifications about failed Zaps, so monitor your API usage dashboard to avoid hitting monthly request limits.
4. Can I track multiple flights in one Zap?
Yes, modify the Python code in Step 4 to loop through multiple flight IATA codes and return an array of flight objects, then use Zapier’s Looping action (available on Team plans and above) to process each flight individually in subsequent steps.
5. How do I filter flights to only send alerts for delayed flights?
Add a Filter step between your Code by Zapier action and Gmail action, setting conditions like “departure_delay is greater than 30” to only continue the workflow when flights meet your delay threshold criteria.
6. Does APILayer offer other APIs that work with Zapier for travel apps?
Yes, APILayer provides complementary APIs like IPStack for location-based flight search, Weatherstack for destination weather conditions, and Fixer for currency conversion in international booking flows.
