Hi, we are having issues with the API when trying to obtain flight info using the FlightInfoEx function. Here is how to reproduce the problem:
(We are using python suds library to do this). Let’s say we want to retrieve information about flight BA726. We construct ident as “BA726@1470903600” and send a request. Response says ‘flight not found’.
API fails to find a concrete flight even when using timestamps from response without the departureTime specified (ident BA726). We’ve tried using various timestamps such as filed_departuretime, filed_time, actualdeparturetime including the timestamp in the faFlightID. None returned the desired flight.
The correct identifier for that flight is “BAW726@1470900000”
You need to use ICAO identifiers when possible. In some cases we are able to automatically convert IATA airline identifiers to ICAO, but this conversion cannot be confidently done in all cases.
You need to use proper UTC timestamps that was actually returned by another FlightXML API response. Generating your own using some other data source will not always work if the time does not match. Local time (BST, or GMT+1 in this case) is not the same as UTC/GMT, so your timestamp was an hour off.
Alternatively, just call FlightInfoEx with just the identifier (“BAW726”) and look through the results to match the specific flight you were looking for and use the faFlightID for all future requests.
