Getting flight status info (delayed, on time, cancelled)

FlightAware AeroAPI
1

Going through the APIs the only mention of status that I see is (the cancelled boolean) in the

SearchBirdseyeInFlight

method and even testing that I can’t get the cancelled status to show correctly (when testing known cancelled flight). Is there a specific method I can call to get if a flight is delayed or cancelled?

2

The actualarrivaltime/actualdeparturetime/estimatedarrivaltime fields returned from FlightInfo/FlightInfoEx will be set to -1 when the flight has been cancelled.

If a flight is delayed, the estimatedarrivaltime will be different from the “filed arrival time” (calculated by adding filed_ete to filed_departuretime).

3

Can you please help me how to get following status of the fields returned from FlightInfoEx:

Depart:

  • true: ?
  • flase: ?

Landed:

  • true: ?
  • false: ?

Status-Departure:

  • in time: ?
  • delayed: ?
  • cancelled: actualarrivaltime/actualdeparturetime/estimatedarrivaltime set to -1

Status-Arrival:

  • in time: estimatedarrivaltime same as “filed arrival time” (calculated by adding filed_ete to filed_departuretime)
  • delayed: estimatedarrivaltime different to “filed arrival time” (calculated by adding filed_ete to filed_departuretime)
  • cancelled: actualarrivaltime/actualdeparturetime/estimatedarrivaltime set to -1
4

Departed: (actualdeparturetime != 0)

Landed: (actualarrivaltime != 0)

Estimated departure times are not available through FlightXML currently, however you can use the estimatedarrivaltime as a general indicator of delayed status even before the flight departs.

5

Thanks. So if actualdeparturetime = 0 it’s possible to use estimatearrivaltime-filed_ete as a rough indicator for estimated departure time?

6

Right. The estimated arrival is generally updated whenever there are any expected departure or enroute delays.

7

May I join this discussion please.

What does it mean if actualdeparturetime = actualarrivaltime AND actualdeparturetime > 0 AND actualarrivaltime < estimatedarrivaltime?
What kind of flight status does such a combination represent?

thank you very much for your help

T

8

actualdeparturetime = actualarrivaltime AND actualdeparturetime > 0 indicates that it is “flight result unknown”, which usually occurs because we received an indication that the flight departed but we never received enough data to conclude that it actually arrived. This is usually due to incomplete data coverage at the destination, but can sometimes be a distressed aircraft.