Airline Ticket Booking APIs - The Complete Guide

They also demand notifications from their booked airline, flight status and all the information in one place. So, if someone is in the adivaha travel business or running a travel agency, he must keep aware of his customers with all such developments. However, this article will explains how Airline Ticket Booking APIs work and what are their pros and cons.

All the forms of transportation and hotels are using a airline reservation system known as the Global Distribution System (GDS). The minimum data requirement for distribution of data and booking an airline ticket is

• Flights
• Schedules
• Fares
• Inventory (Available seats)

This information is accumulated by the Global Distribution System (GDS). This system acts as a third party system which provides all such information. The three globally leading GDS systems are:

• Sabre
• Amadeus
• Travel Port

Some of the regional are

• KUI System in Latin America
• Sirena Travel in Russia
• TravelSky in China
• Axess and Infini in Japan and many more.

To connect with this Global Distribution Systems (GDSs), travel companies or agents require a solution to connect their travel software with this GDSs system and for this purpose they use Application Programming Interface System (API). An airline price api is a medium between different software products which link them without any coding source.

GDS APIs for Flight Ticket Booking

APIs provided by the GDSs for the most part charge for combination and per demand, requesting commission for each reserving that route produced using the purpose of coordination. Now, let’s see the working of these Airline Ticket Booking APIs.

Amadeus APIs

Amadeus GDS is the biggest distribution airline computer reservation system that connects more than 700 airlines for seat and cargo booking. It also integrates with Sabre and Travel Port.

It provides an application for business booking Amadeus cytric travel and expense. This is an app which is used for airline booking api flights via mobiles or desktops. Amadeus provides many Booking APIs that are available in two sets:

• Enterprise APIs
• Self Service APIs

Enterprise APIs provides transportation types, hotels as well as their payments. Enterprise APIs work in REST/JSON and SOAP/XML formats. The flight API allows users to:

• Find fares
• Access flight info
• Book ancillary services (including travel insurance)
• Pay for tickets
• Get utilities information
• Receive a sales report

This API has also customer profiles and queue management solutions.

On the other hand, Self-service APIs provide testing and production services. These APIs helped to cached information on flights, schedules, hotels and other destination points. Self-Service APIs use REST/JSON messaging standards.

Python Flight Portal API

Python Flight Port is a part of the Amadeus IT group. It provides both flights and hotel reservations. Python Flight Portal is a solution-focused on low-cost carriers. It provides direct connections to 100+ low-cost airlines worldwide. The functions of the API are:

• One way and round trip support
• Various types of payments (credit and debit card, virtual payment)
• Speed-boarding
• Ancillary services booking (luggage, speed-boarding and airport check-in)
• Fares and seat selection
• Low-costs flights cached data

But unlike Amadeus it does not provide facility of travel insurance bookings and no scheduling facility.

Sabre APIs

Sabre GDS provides access to 400 airlines. It also gives access to B2B solution via Sabre red 360. In 2015, Sabre launched Abacus that is leading GDS in Asia, with headquarters in Singapore. The GDS has the broadest access to data from airlines, including Chinese and low-cost, and hotels in the Asia-Pacific region.

Sabre is the second-largest GDS and has an airline api integration set similar to Amadeus’ without offering insurance and airport transfers. It uses SOAP/REST messaging formats. The APIs enable data retrieval and booking. They cover:

• Flight schedules and availability
• Fares
• Queue activity
• PRN records
• Itineraries
• Mileage count
• Transactions
• Flight details
• Ancillary booking
• Low-fare history
• Low-fare forecast (available in a beta version)
• Passenger details
• Seat map

Travel Port API

Travel Port is an international platform that unites three GDSs that are Galileo, Apollo and Worldspan. Just like Amadeus and Sabre, Travel Port provides data on flights, hotels and car rentals. Since 2012 Travelport has cooperated with AXESS International Network, a leading Japanese GDS network, created and owned by Japanese Airlines (JAL), which uses Travelport API for flight distribution.

Travelport provides access to all its GDSs via a single Travel Port universal API. This API uses XML messaging format. It books flights from American, European, African, Asian, and Middle Eastern airlines. The Travelport Universal API booking functionality of covers:

• Flights (branded fares and schedules)
• Connected routes (air and rail)
• Ancillary services booking

Ancillary services available for booking differ depending on airlines. But include baggage, meals, and travel insurance. Travelport charges an annual fee for Universal API use. Our quote is available on request.

These are some of the leading Flight Booking APIs used by travel agencies to book flights and other travel plans for their customers. You may also approach these APIs for your travel company.