canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/aviationdata.systems/aviationdata-systems-airports

# AviationData.Systems Airports API V1

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for AviationData.Systems Airports API V1, keeping it validated and agent-ready. The Airports API exposes a global airport reference dataset with lookup by IATA code, fuzzy name autocomplete, nearest-airport search by latitude and longitude, and country-level airport listings. It is intended for travel apps, flight tooling, and any workflow that needs to resolve airport codes, names, and coordinates without maintaining its own dataset.

## For AI agents

Resolve global airports by IATA code, name, or geographic proximity, and look up countries and their airport lists for travel and flight workflows.

## Scope

Does not handle live flight tracking, schedules, fares, or aircraft data - use for airport reference lookups by code, name, or coordinates only.

## Capabilities

- Resolve an airport's full record from a 3-letter IATA code via /v1/airport/iata/{airport_iata}
- Autocomplete airport names against a partial string for typeahead search inputs
- Find the nearest N airports to a latitude and longitude pair for routing and proximity logic
- List airports for a given country code to scope flight searches geographically
- Retrieve a normalised country list for populating country selectors in travel UIs

## Use cases

### IATA Code Resolution for Travel UIs

Travel platforms call /v1/airport/iata/{airport_iata} to expand a 3-letter IATA code into a full airport record with name, city, country, and coordinates. This powers itinerary displays, booking confirmations, and any UI that receives bare IATA codes from a GDS or aggregator and needs human-readable details.

Example prompt: Given IATA code 'JFK', call GET /v1/airport/iata/JFK and return the airport name, city, country, latitude, and longitude

### Nearest-Airport Search for Routing

Logistics, ride-share, and travel concierge apps call /v1/airport/nearest/{result_count}/{latitude}/{longitude} to find the closest airports to a user or shipment location. The endpoint accepts a result count and coordinates and returns the nearest airports in distance order, replacing custom geo-indexing on a private airport dataset.

Example prompt: Given coordinates 51.5074, -0.1278, call GET /v1/airport/nearest/3/51.5074/-0.1278 and return the three closest airports with distance

### Airport Name Autocomplete

Booking flows and search bars call /v1/airport/autocomplete/{airport_name} to suggest airports as the user types a partial name. The endpoint returns ranked matches that the UI can render in a dropdown, eliminating the need to ship a multi-megabyte airport list to the browser.

Example prompt: Given the partial string 'Heath', call GET /v1/airport/autocomplete/Heath and return the top 5 matching airports

### Agent-Driven Travel Planning via Jentic

Travel-planning agents call the Airports API through Jentic to resolve user-supplied city names or coordinates into the actual airport codes a flight-search API expects. Jentic exposes the six operations as discoverable tools so the agent picks the right one - IATA lookup, autocomplete, or nearest - based on the user's phrasing.

Example prompt: Given a user request 'Find a flight from near Trinity College Dublin to New York', search Jentic for 'find nearest airport', call the nearest-airport endpoint, then return the resolved IATA code

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GET | /v1/airport/iata/{airport_iata} | Resolve an airport by IATA code |
| GET | /v1/airport/name/{airport_name} | Look up an airport by name |
| GET | /v1/airport/autocomplete/{airport_name} | Autocomplete airport names from a partial string |
| GET | /v1/airport/nearest/{result_count}/{latitude}/{longitude} | Find the nearest airports to coordinates |
| GET | /v1/country/code/{country_code} | List airports in a country by country code |
| GET | /v1/country_list | List all countries in the dataset |

## Key resources

- **Airports** — Lookup airports by IATA code, name autocomplete, or geographic proximity
- **Countries** — Country list and per-country airport listings

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the AviationData.Systems Airports API by hand means encoding HTTP Basic username-and-password credentials and threading path parameters like IATA code, coordinates, and result count into the right lookup route. Through Jentic you install once, import the Airports API from the API Directory, store the username and password once, and your agent calls it.
- **Permission scoping:** This API is read-only lookups, and its identifiers travel as URL path parameters like /v1/airport/iata/{airport_iata} and /v1/airport/nearest/{result_count}/{latitude}/{longitude}, so you can pin the agent to the lookups it needs. You choose which operations it may call, such as looking up an airport by code or finding the nearest one to a location.
- **Credential handling:** Your AviationData.Systems username and password are stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. They never enter the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'find the nearest airport to a location' or 'look up an airport by IATA code', and Jentic returns the matching operation with its path-parameter schema so the agent supplies coordinates or codes correctly without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **AviationData.Systems Airports API V1 (apis.guru variant)** — Same underlying API, packaged from the apis.guru third-party catalog instead of the Jentic-generated spec.
- **Flightradar24** — Pair the Airports API with Flightradar24 for live flight tracking once airports are resolved.
- **Google Places API** — Use Google Places to resolve free-form place names to coordinates before calling the nearest-airport endpoint.

## FAQ

### Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for AviationData.Systems Airports API V1?

AviationData.Systems does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call AviationData.Systems Airports API V1 via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer.

### What authentication does the AviationData.Systems Airports API use?

The Airports API uses HTTP Basic authentication. Through Jentic, the username and password live in your Jentic One instance and are attached as the Authorization header on each request - agents never see the raw credentials.

### Can I find the nearest airport to a location with this API?

Yes. GET /v1/airport/nearest/{result_count}/{latitude}/{longitude} returns the closest airports to the supplied coordinates, ordered by distance. The result_count parameter controls how many airports come back.

### What are the rate limits for the AviationData.Systems Airports API?

The provider does not publish a fixed rate limit on the spec. Treat it as a low-volume reference API: cache hot lookups (country lists, common IATA codes) on your side and avoid hammering the autocomplete endpoint on every keystroke without debouncing.

### How do I autocomplete airport names through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'autocomplete airport name', load the schema for GET /v1/airport/autocomplete/{airport_name}, and call it with the user's partial string. Jentic returns the matching operation directly so you skip browsing the docs.

### What countries does the airport dataset cover?

GET /v1/country_list returns every country present in the dataset, and GET /v1/country/code/{country_code} returns the airports for a given two-letter country code so you can confirm coverage for any country your application needs.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the AviationData.Systems Airports API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which of the six read-only operations the agent may call, so you can pin it to just the lookups it needs, such as resolving an airport by IATA code with GET /v1/airport/iata/{airport_iata} or finding the closest airports with GET /v1/airport/nearest/{result_count}/{latitude}/{longitude}. Every identifier travels as a URL path parameter, so the agent can only read the airport, country, and coordinate data those routes expose and cannot reach any operation you have not allowed. The stored username and password stay under your control and are attached at execution time, never surfaced to the agent.