AviationStack is a global aviation data REST API that provides real-time, historical, and future flight tracking, along with reference datasets for airports, airlines, aircraft, routes, cities, countries, and aviation taxes. The API exposes live flight positions, departure and arrival timetables, route catalogs, and reference metadata across more than 10,000 airports and 13,000 airlines, enabling integrations that ingest aviation data for analytics, operations dashboards, and downstream warehouses.
Power end-to-end data operations for your AviationStack API with Nexla. Our bi-directional AviationStack connector is purpose-built for AviationStack, making it simple to ingest data, sync it across systems, and deliver it anywhere — all with no coding required. Nexla turns API-sourced data into ready-to-use, reusable data products and makes it easy to send data to AviationStack or any other destination. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your AviationStack workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.
Features
Type: API
SourceDestination
Seamless API Integration: Connect to any endpoint as source or destination without coding, with automatic data product creation
Visual Composition & Chaining: Build complex integrations using visual templates, chain API calls, and compose workflows with data validation and filtering
API Proxy: Expose curated slices of your data securely with a secure and customizable API proxy that validates and transforms data on the fly
Request optimization with intelligent batching, retry, and caching to minimize API calls and costs
The AviationStack API uses API key authentication. Each request is authenticated by appending your personal access key as the access_key URL query parameter. Before creating a credential in Nexla, retrieve your access key from the AviationStack dashboard using the steps below.
Sign up for an AviationStack account at aviationstack.com, or sign in to an existing account.
During registration, select a subscription plan that matches your usage requirements. AviationStack offers a free tier as well as several paid plans that unlock higher request volumes, HTTPS support, and additional endpoints (such as historical and future flight schedules).
The Free Tier is restricted to HTTP requests. HTTPS support (required for most production integrations) is only available on the Basic plan and above. Review the AviationStack pricing page to confirm which plan unlocks the endpoints and protocol you need.
Confirm your email address, and sign in to the AviationStack dashboard.
From the dashboard, locate the API Access Key panel. Your personal API key is displayed in this panel and is used as the value of the access_key query parameter on every AviationStack request.
Click the copy icon next to the key, and store the value securely. This key authenticates all requests made on behalf of your AviationStack account.
Your access key can be regenerated at any time from the AviationStack dashboard. Regenerating the key invalidates the previous value, so any integrations using the old key will need to be updated.
Important
The AviationStack access key grants full access to the data and quota associated with your AviationStack subscription. Store it in a secure secret manager, never commit it to source control, and rotate it immediately if you suspect it has been exposed.
After selecting the data source/destination type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.
Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.
Enter your AviationStack access key in the API Key Value field. Nexla automatically appends this value as the access_key URL parameter on every request to the AviationStack API. The value is stored as a secret and is not displayed after the credential is saved.
The access key is treated as a password. Use a dedicated key for the Nexla integration whenever possible so that the integration can be rotated independently of other AviationStack consumers.
Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source/destination creation.
To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the AviationStack connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to AviationStack, and click Next; or, create a new AviationStack credential for use in this flow.
Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common AviationStack endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below.
List Real-Time Flights
This endpoint returns a paginated list of real-time flights, including live geolocation (latitude, longitude, altitude, and speed), status, airline, and route information. Use it to feed operational dashboards, live tracking maps, or analytics on global flight activity.
All parameters on this endpoint are optional. Leave them blank to return the default global feed of live flights, or set values to narrow the result set.
Enter a date in YYYY-MM-DD format in the Flight Date field to filter flights by a specific date. AviationStack supports flight dates within the last three months on the real-time flights endpoint; older dates require the List Historical Flights endpoint.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter by airline, flight number, IATA/ICAO code, or other identifiers.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
Pagination is handled automatically using AviationStack's offset and limit parameters with a default page size of 100 records. The source iterates until no more records are returned.
List Historical Flights
This endpoint returns historical flight data for a specific date, including the completed flight status, scheduled and actual times, and routing details. Use it to backfill historical aviation data into a warehouse or run trend analysis on completed flights.
Enter the target date in YYYY-MM-DD format in the Flight Date field. This field is required, and the date should be in the past.
Access to historical flight data beyond the recent window typically requires a Professional or higher AviationStack subscription. Confirm your plan's historical window in the AviationStack dashboard before scheduling long-running historical backfills.
List Flight Schedules
This endpoint returns a paginated list of scheduled flights with planned departure and arrival times. Use it to keep a synced copy of the global flight schedule, or to feed downstream tools that operate on planned (rather than live) flight data.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response, or leave it blank to use the AviationStack default.
Get Airport Timetable
This endpoint returns the real-time arrivals or departures timetable for a specific airport. Use it to power gate or terminal dashboards, monitor on-time performance at a single airport, or feed downstream operations systems.
Enter the airport's three-letter IATA code in the Airport IATA Code field (for example, JFK, LAX, LHR). This field is required; the template defaults to JFK.
Set the Flight Type field to departure to fetch the departures timetable, or arrival to fetch the arrivals timetable. The default is departure.
IATA codes can be obtained from the List Airports endpoint. To track both arrivals and departures for the same airport, create two sources — one for each value of Flight Type.
Get Future Flight Schedules
This endpoint returns upcoming flight schedule information for a specific airport on a given future date, filtered by departure or arrival. Use it to surface forward-looking schedules in planning tools, capacity dashboards, or downstream booking systems.
Enter the airport's three-letter IATA code in the Airport IATA Code field (for example, JFK, LAX, LHR). This field is required; the template defaults to JFK.
Enter the target date in YYYY-MM-DD format in the Schedule Date field. This field is required, and the date must be in the future.
Set the Flight Type field to departure to fetch future departures, or arrival to fetch future arrivals. The default is departure.
Access to future flight schedules typically requires a paid AviationStack plan. Confirm in the AviationStack dashboard that your subscription includes the flightsFuture endpoint before scheduling this source.
List Airports
This endpoint returns a paginated list of airports with location, IATA/ICAO codes, and contact information. Use it as a reference dataset for airport lookups, or to keep a downstream warehouse synced with AviationStack's airport catalog.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter airports by name, city, country, or IATA code. Leave it blank to return all airports.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
IATA codes returned by this endpoint can be used to drive the Get Airport Timetable and Get Future Flight Schedules endpoints.
List Airlines
This endpoint returns a paginated list of airlines, including IATA and ICAO codes, country of registration, fleet size, and other operational details. Use it as a reference dataset for airline lookups across downstream systems.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter airlines by name, IATA code, or ICAO code. Leave it blank to return all airlines.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
List Airplanes
This endpoint returns a paginated list of individual aircraft, including registration number, type, operator, and other identifying details. Use it to build a synced catalog of aircraft for fleet analytics or compliance reporting.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter aircraft by registration number, airline, or aircraft type. Leave it blank to return all aircraft.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
List Aircraft Types
This endpoint returns a paginated list of aircraft types (models) with technical specifications and manufacturer details. Use it as a reference dataset for joining with List Airplanes or with live flight feeds to enrich records with model-level data.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter aircraft types by model name, manufacturer, or IATA code. Leave it blank to return all aircraft types.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
List Routes
This endpoint returns a paginated list of airline routes, including departure and arrival airport codes, operating airline, and flight number. Routes are refreshed by AviationStack on a periodic basis. Use it to keep a downstream catalog of scheduled airline routes in sync.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter routes by airport code or route identifier. Leave it blank to return all routes.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
List Cities
This endpoint returns a paginated list of cities with geographical and airport-association information. Use it as a reference dataset for joining city-level metadata to flights, airports, or routes.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter cities by name, country, or airport code. Leave it blank to return all cities.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
List Countries
This endpoint returns a paginated list of countries with geographical and regulatory information. Use it as a reference dataset for joining country-level attributes to airlines, airports, or routes.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter countries by name, code, or region. Leave it blank to return all countries.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
List Taxes
This endpoint returns a paginated list of aviation-related taxes and fees by jurisdiction. Use it to keep tax reference data in sync for revenue, fare, or regulatory reporting.
Enter a search term in the Search field to filter taxes by country, region, or tax type. Leave it blank to return all taxes.
Enter a language code (for example, en, es, fr) in the Language field to localize textual fields in the response.
Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.
AviationStack data sources can also be manually configured to ingest data from any valid AviationStack API endpoint, including endpoints not covered by the pre-built templates, chained API calls (such as using a list of airport IATA codes to drive the Get Airport Timetable endpoint for each airport), or custom request parameters. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, endpoint URL, date/time and lookup macros, path to data, metadata, and request headers.
All AviationStack endpoints use the base URL https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/ followed by the resource path (for example, https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/flights), and the access_key URL parameter is appended automatically from your credential — no authentication header is required. Every endpoint wraps its result set in a top-level data array, so set the path to data to $.data[*]; the sibling pagination object (limit, offset, count, total) can be captured as metadata with $.pagination. HTTPS access requires a paid AviationStack plan (Basic or higher) — Free Tier accounts must use the HTTP base URL http://api.aviationstack.com/v1/.
Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Create button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the new AviationStack data source. Nexla will now begin ingesting data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.
