Format of the fa_flight_id

FlightAware AeroAPI
1

Migrating to API4 - what’s the exact format of the fa_flight_id

e.g. “fa_flight_id”: “UAL148-1691298925-fa-3799p”

I think the 169… is the scheduled departure time - is that in minutes and also local or zulu time.

what’s the 3799p?

I’m interested in getting the flight status of a specific flight # and date-time. I assume GET /flights/{ident} is the way to go.

Thanks.

2

The flight_id should be considered to be opaque (similar to a UUID) and is not intended to have externally parsable or understandable meanings. It is not possible to “generate” a flight_id algorithmically by knowing just the flight number and its time.

3

ok.

I’m trying to get the flight status for a specific flight # and date-time.

Which api should I call?

GET /flights/{ident} ???

do I set the ident_type to designator and then add the start and end string parameters?

Is there a documentation for the enums - for example the values for the flight status field etc.

Thanks.

4

Here is some information regarding the call that should be used and you can try specific examples on the site. AeroAPI Developer Portal - FlightAware

You would include a start and end date if you are looking for a flight within a specific time range. If no time frame is selected it would give you the most recent flights, up to 15 if there is no max_pages set., with some that could be occurring in the future.

There is no public documentation of the values of status field.

5

My application requires getting just the single flight - i know the departure date-time.

I’d like a single flight returned or none.

Is /flights/UAL82?... the optimal api call?

I noticed that in the above api call - I need to set both the start and end parameters to get a specific flight. Actually I need to add 1 second to the end since it doesn’t allow the same time for both start and end.

Pls consider making those time parameters inclusive - so that the same timestamp can be used.

Thanks.

6

Hello @bovineone, @cbw, could I please get an update on this matter? I’m specifically interested in obtaining information about a particular flight, and would like to avoid any extraneous data. Could you possibly share any relevant code or documentation with me? Thank you.

7

The premise of the original question in this thread is not valid. It’s simply not possible to “generate” your own fa_flight_id for a flight and be able to directly look it up from that generated id. The fa_flight_ids should be basically treated as opaque GUID/UUID values, since they are generated by our server in a way that is not repeatable and not deterministic. The only way to obtain the fa_flight_id for a flight is to receive that id from another of our API responses.

To look up a recent flight by ident (within the last 14 days), you should be using GET /flights/-ident-

If you know a little more about a very recent flight (within the last 48 hours), you can also use the search function: GET /flights/search

If you are interested in an older flight (more than 14 days ago), then you can use the history lookup: GET /history/flights/-ident-

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