Flight Alert Avg Delay Time to push notification

FlightAware AeroAPI
1

Hi -

I’ve been testing your API for a while now and really like the service (and pricing). Great stuff!

One thing I’ve noticed is a delay in alerts being generated from when other services and airlines directly are sending notifications such as gate assignment. I understand there are FAA imposed data delays. But take gate assignements for example. I’ve noticed that the API has a gate assigned to a flight well in advance sometimes of when the airlines have a gate assigned. This leads to either not havng a gate assignement notification sent or one sent as near to the flight departing as 30 mins or closer. Comparing that to the airlines directly, they might have a gate assignement alert a couple hours prior to.

My question is three-fold. How are you determining the gate assignement early (most times it is accurate to what is eventually posted by the airline) and 2) is there a way to set a notification to deliver Xhours/mins prior to departure OR is there a way to have the gate assignement delivered earlier

And the overarching question is what is your typical data delay from when an airline might post a significant flight update?

Thanks!!
Kane

2

We utilize many different data providers and data sources, which each have different latencies and update frequencies that may vary depending on the airport or airline. We do not intentionally introduce any artificial delay and merely make available the data that is given to us when we receive it. Any propagation delays that you see on other sources (such as directly from the airline’s own website) is due to their own technical or political limitations.

When initially creating an alert for a flight, you should consider initially requesting the current status and gate/terminal using FlightInfoEx+AirlineFlightInfo so that you know any such information that is already available, rather than relying exclusively on the first notification.

3

Makes perfect sense. Thanks for the detailed information. I’ll give the initial call to FlightInfoEx+AirlineFlightInfo a try and see how it goes.

Thanks again!
Kane