API Documents

Aircraft Thumbnail

Request

Request URLs for thumbnail look up are in the following format:

https://airport-data.com/api/ac_thumb.json?m=XXXXXX&n=N

https://airport-data.com/api/ac_thumb.json?m=400A0B&n=2

Parameters

Name	Value	Example	Description
m	6-Char Hex string	400A0B	Aircraft MODE-S code in Hex format
n	Numeric	2	Max number of results, default is 1
r (optional)	String	G-KKAZ	Aircraft registry, encoded

The API searches aircraft thumbnails in following order:
1. Mode-S code & Registry
2. Mode-S code alone
3. Registry alone.

Results

Results are returned as plain text in JSON format. Results may contain one or more of following keys:

Key	Value	Example	Description
status	Int	200	HTTP status code, 200 means ok
count	Int	2	Result data count
data	Array	See following example	Thumbnail data
error	String	Aircraft thumbnail not found.	Error message

An example of returned data:

{
  status: 200,
  count: 2,
  data: [
    {
      image: "https://airport-data.com/images/aircraft/thumbnails/000/582/582407.jpg",
      link: "https://airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/000582407.html",
      photographer: "Jan Ittensammer"
    },
    {
      image: "https://airport-data.com/images/aircraft/thumbnails/000/560/560416.jpg",
      link: "https://airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/000560416.html",
      photographer: "Shunn311"
    }
  ]
}

If an error occured, then the HTTP status code is returned as status code, i.e., 404 for "NOT FOUND". An error message will also be returned where possible.

Each element in data array respresent one thumbnail. For each thumbnail, the result element contains the following data:

Key	Value	Example	Description
image	String	https://airport-data.com/images/aircraft/thumbnails/000/924/924555.jpg	Thumbnail
link	String	https://airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/000924555.html	Link to actual photo
photographer	String	Graham Reeve	Photographer name

Note

In order to not disrupt the layout of 3rd-party application, this API only return thumbnails in landscape orientation.

Thumbnail images are 200 pixels in width. Height vary slightly depending on aspect ratio of original photo.

Airport Info

Request

Request URLs for airport look up are in the following format:

https://airport-data.com/api/ap_info.json?icao=ABCD

https://airport-data.com/api/ap_info.json?iata=DEF

https://airport-data.com/api/ap_info.json?icao=KJFK
or
https://airport-data.com/api/ap_info.json?iata=JFK

Parameters

Name	Value	Example	Description
icao	ICAO code	KJFK	ICAO code (4 chars)
iata	IATA code	JFK	IATA code (3 chars)

If both parameters are supplied, the API searches ICAO first. If no result found, it will then search IATA code.

Results

Results are returned as plain text in JSON format. Results may contain one or more of following keys:

Key	Value	Example	Description
status	Int	200	HTTP status code, 200 means ok
icao	String	KJFK	Airport ICAO code
iata	String	JFK	Airport IATA code
name	String	John F Kennedy International Airport	Airport name
location	String	New York, NY	Location of airport
country	String	United States	Country of airport location
country_code	String	US	2-char country code
longitude	Decimal	-73.778926	Airport location longitude
latitude	Decimal	40.639751	Airport location latitude
link	String	https://airport-data.com/airport/JFK/	Link to airport info page
error	String	"Airport not found."	Error message

An example of returned data:

{
	icao: "KJFK",
	iata: "JFK",
	name: "John F Kennedy International Airport",
	location: "New York, NY",
	country: "United States",
	country_code: "US",
	longitude: "-73.778926",
	latitude: "40.639751",
	link: "https://airport-data.com/airport/JFK/",
	status: 200
}

If an error occured, then the HTTP status code is returned as status code, i.e., 404 for "NOT FOUND". An error message will also be returned where possible.

Status Codes

Airport-Data.com API attempts to return appropriate status code inside its response for every request, which also follows HTTP standard as close as possible. An error message will also be returned where possible.

HTTP status code for API call will be 200 (OK) if the request is processed without incident.

{"error":"Aircraft thumbnail not found."}

Code	Text	Description
200	OK	Success!
304	Not Modified	There was no new data to return.
400	Bad Request	The request was invalid or cannot be otherwise served. An accompanying error message will explain further.
401	Unauthorized	Authentication credentials were missing or incorrect.
403	Forbidden	The request is understood, but it has been refused or access is not allowed. An accompanying error message will explain why.
404	Not Found	The URI requested is invalid or the resource requested, such as a user, does not exists. Also returned when the requested format is not supported by the requested method.
406	Not Acceptable	Returned by the Search API when an invalid format is specified in the request.
410	Gone	This resource is gone. Used to indicate that an API endpoint has been turned off.
429	Too Many Requests	Returned when a request cannot be served due to the application's rate limit having been exhausted for the resource.
500	Internal Server Error	Something is broken.
502	Bad Gateway	Site is down or being upgraded.
503	Service Unavailable	The servers are up, but overloaded with requests. Try again later.