Scheduled/estimated/actual out/off/on/in explanation

FlightAware AeroAPI
1

Hello everyone,

Concerning get /history/flights/{ident}, I have difficulties to understand the fields related to departure & arrival date/time.
I can’t figure out which field means what.
The 12 fields I would need your help with are as follow:

  1. scheduled_out
  2. estimated_out
  3. actual_out
  4. scheduled_off
  5. estimated_off
  6. actual_off
  7. scheduled_on
  8. estimated_on
  9. actual_on
  10. scheduled_in
  11. estimated_in
  12. actual_in

Does anyone knows what they mean?
Thanks a lot for your help!
Joffrey

2

Scheduled - when something was scheduled in advance to occur
Estimate - the current best estimate of when something will occur
Actual - when something actually occured

OUT of the gate (at the origin)
OFF the runway (at the origin)
ON the runway (at the destination)
IN the gate (at the destination)

1 Like
3

Very clear, thanks a lot @mduell

I would have 2 questions then related to how this data if captured:

  1. for some cases (around 3-5% of cases) I get “schedule_on” > “schedule_in”, but “in” (land on runway) should always be < “in” (the gate) => are there different way for FlightAware to capture this data so it would explain why sometimes we get “on” > “in” (note: by >/< I mean after/before)

  2. On the 12 fields I mentioned earlier, the only ones that always gets data are “schedule_off” and “estimated_off”. Do you know why the 10 others don’t get data sometimes? Here in average below % of data missing I get, the difference by field of how much it’s usually missing:

  • scheduled_out => 2%-20% (medium)
  • estimated_out => 2%-20% (medium)
  • actual_out => 15%-50% (highest missing)
  • scheduled_off => 0% (always ok)
  • estimated_off => 0% (always ok)
  • actual_off => 1%-2% (low)
  • scheduled_on => 1%-2% (low)
  • estimated_on => 1%-2% (low)
  • actual_on => 1%-2% (low)
  • scheduled_in => 2%-20% (medium)
  • estimated_in => 2%-20% (medium)
  • actual_in => 15%-50% (highest missing)

If you know the logic on how it’s captured and why I get these, it would be so helpful!
Thanks a lot again for your help.

Joffrey

4

Our data is a composite of multiple data feeds and there can sometimes be discrepancies in those sources when one provides one time and another provides the other.

actual_in and actual_out are sometimes difficult for us to reliably get because it depends on the airline and/or airport being in a coverage area and data feed partnership that provides that data to us. Meanwhile, actual_off and actual_on are possible for us to fallback and derive from positional ADS-B sources if we do not receive it from another feed.

1 Like
5

Thanks a lot for your reply!
Joffrey