Virtual Airline Schedule Question and FlightXML3

FlightAware AeroAPI
1

First of all my thoughts and prayers go out to the whole FA staff during this time. I am glad to hear that everyone so far has reported in safe (from what we’ve been told).

I looked through the discussions and couldn’t find the answer. If it has already been asked, I apologize. I help manage a virtual airline based on the operations of Delta / Air France-KLM and other Skyteam partners. Up until a couple of years ago, we used to get our data directly from Innovata. After they were purchased by FlightGlobal, the prices we paid went up quite considerably. As a result, we have to look for a new provider and recode our back-end accordingly.

We’re interested in going the FA route because of the breadth of data available to us but I’ve got a couple of questions before we pull the trigger.

  1. If we do the FlightXML3 beta and sign up for the Silver package, how do we go about doing an initial data cull of schedules? Would it be considered an initial single query if we did SetMaximumResultSize to 15000 (or even higher) or would we have to pull multiple calls and construct our updated database accordingly?
  2. Ongoing basis (and slightly related to Question 1), if we make the call on a daily basis, is there a function in the string that will allow us to skip flights that aren’t updated?

We are striving for ultimate realism in the schedules department to ensure that we only have the most current and up to date information on the schedules.

Thanks in advance,

Brian

2

I’m assuming you’re referring to the AirlineFlightSchedules function? You would probably want to still do your initial requests in many small chunks, probably spanning a few days at a time or just a single airline or just a single airport at a time. If individual requests are too large, then it is more likely for the operation to time out and receive an HTTP error instead.

For ongoing updates from AirlineFlightSchedules, you’ll only need to ensure that your requested date rate is greater than where you stopped. The data returned by AirlineFlightSchdules is actually only updated once per month and contains schedule data for approximately the next six months or so–it doesn’t reflect recent cancellations or unscheduled operations.

If you need to obtain the latest flight status, then you will probably need to use the AirportBoards function for specific airports (or FlightInfoStatus for specific flights). In both of those cases, you don’t have any control over the timerange being returned and you’ll just need to diregard (or update) data for flights that you’ve already received.

3

Thanks for the update. I will pass this over to my tech team and get their thoughts from the back-end. Hope you’re safe and sound!

Thanks,

Brian