Aviation Hub ✈️🌍

A complete aviation database in one Actor: 85,000+ airports, the world airline registry, a full route mapper with geocoded endpoints and great-circle distances, live aircraft in the sky, and live airport weather. All from public open data — no API key.

Most aviation APIs are locked behind keys, quotas and paywalls. This Actor fuses the best keyless open datasets — OurAirports, OpenFlights, ADS-B and NOAA aviation weather — into one clean, structured feed you can query six ways.

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Six modes

Mode	What you get
airports	Search/filter 85,000+ airports — IATA/ICAO codes, coordinates, elevation, country, city, type, scheduled service, and (optionally) full runway lists.
airlines	The airline registry — ~6,000 airlines with IATA/ICAO codes, callsign, country and active status.
routes	A real route mapper — every airline route with both endpoints geocoded (lat/lon), great-circle distance in km, the operating airlines and aircraft types. Perfect for drawing route maps.
live	Live aircraft in the sky around any airport or coordinate (ADS-B): callsign, hex, registration, type, altitude, speed, heading, position, distance.
weather	Live METAR airport weather: temperature, wind, visibility, ceiling, altimeter and flight category (VFR/MVFR/IFR).
digest	One aviation-market summary row: busiest airports by routes, biggest airlines, airport counts by type and country, most common aircraft.

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Example inputs

Every large airport in a country, with runways

{ "mode": "airports", "country": "GB", "airportType": "large_airport", "includeRunways": true }

Route mapper — all routes out of Heathrow, longest first

{ "mode": "routes", "from": "LHR" }

Each row carries source_latitude/longitude and destination_latitude/longitude plus distance_km, so you can plot great-circle lines directly.

Does anyone fly JFK → Dubai, and on what aircraft?

{ "mode": "routes", "from": "JFK", "to": "DXB" }

Live aircraft within 60 nm of Heathrow

{ "mode": "live", "near": "EGLL", "radiusNm": 60 }

near also accepts a "lat,lon" coordinate pair.

Live weather at five hub airports

{ "mode": "weather", "near": "KJFK,EGLL,OMDB,VCBI,YSSY" }

One market-digest row

{ "mode": "digest" }

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What each airport row looks like

ident · type · name · iata · icao · gps_code · local_code · latitude · longitude · elevation_ft · continent · country_code · region_code · municipality · scheduled_service · wikipedia_link · home_link · keywords · country · runways[]

What each route row looks like

airline_code · airline · airline_country · source · source_airport · source_city · source_country · source_latitude · source_longitude · destination · destination_airport · destination_city · destination_country · destination_latitude · destination_longitude · distance_km · stops · codeshare · equipment[]

What each live aircraft row looks like

hex · callsign · registration · type · origin_country · latitude · longitude · altitude_ft · on_ground · speed_kt · heading · vertical_rate_fpm · squawk · distance_km · source

What each weather row looks like

icao · name · observed_at · temp_c · dewpoint_c · wind_dir_deg · wind_speed_kt · wind_gust_kt · visibility · altimeter_hpa · flight_category · clouds[] · latitude · longitude · elevation_m · raw (the raw METAR string)

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Run it on a schedule

Airport and airline data update daily; aircraft and weather are real-time. Schedule a run to keep a live airport/route table in a sheet or dashboard, power a flight-map, feed a travel or logistics app, or track live traffic and weather at the airports you care about.

Using the Python SDK

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR-APIFY-TOKEN")

# Live aircraft near Heathrow
run = client.actor("darknezz/aviation-hub").call(
    run_input={"mode": "live", "near": "EGLL", "radiusNm": 60}
)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["callsign"], item["altitude_ft"], item["speed_kt"])

Using the API directly

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/darknezz~aviation-hub/run-sync-get-dataset-items
{
  "mode": "weather",
  "near": "EGLL,LFPG"
}

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Data sources & notes

• Airports / runways / countries — OurAirports open data (public domain), refreshed daily. ~85k airports worldwide.
• Airlines / routes — OpenFlights open database — the standard open airline and route network (community-maintained). It is a broad reference network, not a live schedule; treat routes as "which carriers have flown this city pair" rather than today's timetable.
• Live aircraft — adsb.lol community ADS-B feed (no key), with automatic fallback to the OpenSky Network anonymous API. Coverage depends on volunteer receivers; ground/low-altitude aircraft may not appear.
• Airport weather — aviationweather.gov (NOAA) live METAR (no key).
• All data is public and non-personal (airport facilities, airline registries, aircraft tail numbers, weather). No API key required for any mode.

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Worked example

A live run with {"mode": "airports", "country": "RO", "airportType": "large_airport"} returned every Romanian large airport with full codes and coordinates:

ident	name	iata	icao
LRBC	Bacău George Enescu International Airport	BCM	LRBC
LRBS	Bucharest Băneasa Aurel Vlaicu International Airport	BBU	LRBS
LRBV	Brașov-Ghimbav International Airport	GHV	LRBV
LRCK	Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport	CND	LRCK

Each row also carries latitude, longitude, elevation_ft, type, scheduled_service and (with includeRunways) the full runway list — everything needed to plot a route map or feed a travel app.

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FAQ

Why do some airports have no IATA code? IATA codes are assigned to airports with scheduled passenger service; smaller fields carry an ICAO code (or none at all). The Actor returns empty strings for missing codes so records keep a fixed shape.

How live is the live mode? ADS-B feeds are near-real-time but coverage depends on volunteer receivers — ground/low-altitude aircraft can be missing. The Actor falls back to OpenSky when adsb.lol has no data, and returns empty rather than stale rows.

Is routes a live timetable? No — OpenFlights is a reference route network ("which carriers have flown this city pair"), not today's schedule. Use live for real-time aircraft and weather for current conditions.

Can I query by coordinates? Yes — airports, live and weather accept lat/lon (or near with an airport code) to scope results around any point.

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Limitations

• airports/airlines/routes are refreshed from their open datasets roughly daily — brand-new airports or airlines may not appear immediately.
• ADS-B live coverage is receiver-dependent; very low-altitude or remote-aircraft traffic can be missing.
• weather returns METAR observations (wind, visibility, ceiling, flight category), not forecasts.
• digest is a point-in-time market summary computed from the same open datasets — treat it as a reference snapshot.

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Pricing

Pay per event — $0.001 per data record (airport, airline, route, live aircraft or weather row) and $0.007 per digest row. Nothing is charged on failed or empty runs.

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Keywords

aviation database, airport database, airport API, airline database, IATA code, ICAO code, airport codes, airline codes, flight routes, route map, airline routes, great circle distance, live flights, live aircraft, ADS-B, flight tracker, METAR, airport weather, aviation weather, runway data, OurAirports, OpenFlights, airports by country, busiest airports, flight data, aviation data, no API key.