Identifying private flights

FlightAware AeroAPI
1

Hello everyone,

I’m accessing the /json/FlightXML2/ url using python 3 scripts. To do GETs I’m using the “requests” lib from python.

What I would like to know is if the FlightAware database has the information about which planes are commercial and privates. Furthermore, if the plane is flying at the moment, if it is a commercial or private flight. I’m aiming at private flights tracking but I could not find in the documentation any possible query that would give me this information.

Thanks for the help and attention

2

In FlightXML 2 the Search endpoint offers a ga (private) or ariline (commercial) filter when making requests.

Otherwise this identifier is readily present in many FlightXML 3 requests like AirportBoards or FlightInfoStatus as the type field.

3

Thanks for the info. Is FlightXML 3 beta or official? Where can I find its documentation ?

EDIT: Found de documentation of the new API. About the FlightXML 2, I could not find this filter. Could you give me an example? Thanks

4

In FlightXML3 requests like AirportBoards allow only ga or commercial results to be returned.

Requests that utilize the FlightInfoStatusStruct for the return results, like FlightInfoStatus or AirportBoards contain a type field in the response to indicate if the flight is ga or commercial.

5

Hello !

I’m trying to identify all private flights that departed from a certain airport over the last 3 days

Is it feasible using AeroAPI ?

6

Or simply to obtain the aircraft type for each departing flight ?

7

For AeroAPI, you can use the
GET /airports/{id}/flights/departures method to retrieve departing flights for an aircraft. You can look at the type field, which is an enum of either General_Aviation┃Airline, whether this is a commercial or general aviation flight.

8

Many thanks for your reply !

Yes I saw that but I would like to obtain the aircraft type from the list of departures, by calling this operation: GET /aircraft/types/{type}

Doc:

Is there a link between the 2 ?

9

That type refers to the actual manufacturer and model of the aircraft (ie: B787, A321, C172, P28A, etc), not the operational type (GA vs Airline).

10

Ok so do you think it’s possible to add the aircraftType field in the response object of the GET /airports/{id}/flights/departures operation ?

11

I would recommend trying the /flight/search with -origin KLAX -filter ga