FlightAware Discussions

Schedule data incorrect

FlightAware AeroAPI (formerly FlightXML)
#1

Hi,

I think the scheduled data for flight BAW 1386 departing on the 13th December is incorrect. Your airlineschedule method indicates that this flight is scheduled to depart at 08:00 but the correct departure time should be 09:45. I also searched for the flight on your website and the flight there does show the scheduled gate departure to be 09:45 but that the scheduled take off time is 08:00 which is obviously an error. Can you let me know what is going on please as I am confused. Is something wrong or am I interpreting the airlineschedule data incorrectly? I have noticed this type of discrepancy on quite a few flights recently.

Many thanks

Stewart

#2

It’s not necessarily an error, just probably just a recent change in schedule that has not yet been propagated. The airlines publish new long-term schedules to us only once per month, so if they make changes without sufficient forward planning then everyone downstream continues to see the old times until the next update cycle. Typically, the final flightplan that gets published a few hours just before the flight has the correct times.

#3

Hi thanks for the response. I did think it was a schedule change. But why did it show on your main flight tracking web page as 09:45? I also checked with other data providers and they were showing the correct departure schedule. I’m not sure how I am able to deal with the schedule change from your api to get the correct information. Can you help?

#4

The long-term, speculative flight schedule information returned by the AirlineFlightSchedules function should only be relied upon when it is still too far in the future to be tracked by a faFlightId (generally about 48 hours prior to departure). Once it begins to be tracked by a faFlightId, it will be visible by functions like FlightInfoEx in v2 (or FlightInfoStatus in v3), and will reflect any more recently updated flightplan information as it becomes available. The filed_departuretime and estimateddeparturetime fields in particular will be more interesting to pay attention to once the flight is available through those functions.

#5

Many thanks. Do you know when v3 will be brought into the v2. I think the v3 is now closed but I understood some of the method calls will be integrated into v2. Any timeframe when that might go live. I’m interested to look at the FlightInfoStatus method.

#7

Unfortunately we do not have anything to announce regarding future updates to FXML at this time. Please stay tuned for future announcements.