Airsiders Routing API
The Airsiders Routing API enables online travel agents and travel application developers to provide detailed information, risk assessment, and step-by-step directions for connections between flights to their customers. In this document, we’ll go over the details of this API, its use cases, and an API usage example.
What is virtual interlining?
“Virtual interlining” is an aviation industry term referring to the bundling of separate flights on non-partner carriers to a create a single, seamless itinerary for the passenger. With traditional interlining, airlines would offer multi-carrier itineraries based on formal arrangements like partnerships, alliances, or codeshares. Now, the technology behind virtual interlining has opened up billions of air travel possibilities by connecting unaffiliated airlines. For consumers, this has resulted in lower airfare costs and a massive selection of routes to choose from.
What is the Airsiders Routing API?
Airsiders simplifies the integration of virtual interlining into travel applications. The Airsiders Routing API allows online travel agents, search engines, airports, airlines, metasearch websites, and other interested parties to understand the risk of a given route connection in great detail.
The API offers a high-level risk assessment, giving a high, medium, low, or not possible rating for any connection between two flights. This assessment accounts for how far the traveler has to go within the airport, the wait times at each point, whether they have to switch terminals or go through security, whether they have a visa, and more variables.
By detailing the effort required to transfer between flights, the API calculates the likelihood of a successful connection.
Let’s now look at further reasons why this API is so useful for travel applications.
Geolocation-based routing
The core of the Routing API is its geolocation-based logic that allows Airsiders to guide the user through the airport using actual geodata. While general instructions and an assessment of connection risk are important aspects of the returned data, the real route the API provides can be displayed as a point-to-point map critical to helping the user navigate the connecting airport.
With the geolocation data, the Routing API is able to provide step-by-step instructions for a passenger to navigate through an airport based on their arrival and departure gates. The API provides a list of specific steps that the passenger needs to follow, such as:
- which direction to take after exiting a gate;
- walking distances and times between all points on the route;
- specific passport control areas to go through, if needed, and estimates of waiting time at each area;
- journeys that include retail and leisure stops, such as restaurants, lounges, and shops
- security checks and how long they are estimated to take;
- stairs, elevators, tunnels;
- transit services between terminals;
- taxi ranks, train stations (for local and international service), bus stations;
- specific instructions for passengers with restricted mobility.
Direct routing
In addition to step-by-step routes between connecting flights, the API can generate direct routes for inbound and outbound passengers. The API provides instructions from entry and exit points of the airport, including car parks, train stations, taxi stands, bus stops, and passenger drop-off zones, all the way to departing and arriving gates.
The Routing API thus offers a complete wayfinding solution for all passenger use cases: Connecting, departing, and arriving. All the steps and features provided in the connecting route instructions are also available in the direct routing instructions.
Why use an API for interlining?
Using an API for virtual interlining is a valuable tool for travel providers and business apps for multiple reasons.
First, information related to connections on separate tickets is usually not available from airlines or airports. This means that not all providers are able to calculate the amount of time it takes to connect between two flights. Because the Airsiders Routing API works with flights that have been purchased on different tickets, it solves the problem of evaluating the feasibility and risk of connections purchased separately.
Second, the complexity of such calculations increases as you include more factors like queues at airports and COVID-19 restrictions. High-confidence estimates of connection times require understanding the conditions of the airport, including whether the passenger will need to change terminals or go through security. Even after finding this information out, travel providers would need to hope for the best if their passenger’s connection time was minimal. The Routing API weighs these detailed factors against one another so you, as an online travel agent or a travel application developer, don’t need to attempt a complex assessment yourself.
And third, because the Routing API provides all this information about connections in an easy-to-integrate and developer-friendly manner, it allows travel providers to focus on building core business logic while taking advantage of the data and processes Airsiders has put into place. By integrating our data and mapping to abstract away the connection layer, providers are able to focus on their highest-value features and functionality.
How the Airsiders Routing API solves interlining for travel providers
The functionality you can build with the API centers on the intelligence of the returned data, which allows the API to determine more than a point-to-point route through the airport. It factors in which points of interest (passport control, luggage collection, security, etc. ) the individual passenger needs to pass through (or not) to optimise a given route. This is then fed into the connection calculation, which assesses whether the connection is realistic.
With this is mind, you can perform a detailed search of itineraries based on risk of connection. For example, if you’re looking to only show flights with a low risk to your customers, you can use the API to filter out other risk ratings. Along with being a useful tool, offering an accurate risk assessment has the added benefit of building trust with your users.
In a similar vein, you can also extend flight options considered within your search. For example, if you want to search for tickets with at most one connection, the API enables you to do so.
You can also increase the number of possible itineraries. This is because our virtual interlining algorithm opens up options that wouldn’t normally be available due to partnerships between airlines excluding “external” airlines on the same ticket. By this mechanism, you, as the travel provider, can sell new connections that would otherwise stay locked.
Routing API usage examples
A successful Routing API request will result in a JSON response object that details the following information:
- Total travel time.
- Connection risk assessment.
- Traveler details relevant to the specific route the traveler will need to take (e.g., visa requirements and baggage).
- Specific geo points for navigation throughout the journey, from the start at the departure airport to the very end at the destination.
Here’s a snippet from a sample output (the route is truncated for readability as it consists of hundreds of points of step-by-step directions):
{
"geolocations": {
"type": "FeatureCollection",
"features": [
{
"geometry": {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [
14.26463958,
50.10603346
]
},
"type": "Feature",
"properties": {
"asid": "node/kkh9cmo2",
"airport_iata": "PRG",
"iata": "PRG",
"terminal_numbers": [
"T2"
],
"gate_categories": [
"C",
"D"
],
"as_type": "ArrivalBusDropOff",
"process_time": 600,
"tags": {
"level": "0",
"airsiders": "arrivalBusDropOff",
"as_type": "ArrivalBusDropOff"
},
"own": {
"new": true,
"levels": [
0
],
"ways": [
"way/kkh9er0t"
]
}
},
"id": "node/kkh9cmo2"
}
]
},
"travel_time": 47.89,
"risk_class": "LOW",
"arrival": {
"terminal_number": "T2",
"airport_iata": "PRG"
},
"departure": {
"terminal_number": "T1",
"gate_category": "B",
"gate": "B8",
"airport_iata": "PRG"
},
"user_profile": {
"is_same_ticket": true,
"has_visa": true,
"has_boarding_pass": true,
"is_bag_checkedin_to_destination": true,
"connection_type": "DI"
},
"journey_type": "Landside",
"journeys_metadata": {
"Airside": {
"is_eligible": false
},
"Landside": {
"is_eligible": true,
"travel_time": 47.88596387520242,
"essential_pois": [
{
"as_type": "PassportEmigration",
"asid": "node/kkfiloha"
}
]
}
}
}
Each geo point contains point-specific details. For example, here is a representation of a part of the journey that includes using an escalator:
{
"type": "Feature",
"properties": {
"asid": "node/kkffxqjf",
"wait_time": 15,
"as_type": "Escalator",
"process_time": 60,
"airport_iata": "PRG",
"iata": "PRG",
"terminal_number": "T2"
}
}
This data is specifying that the particular transfer includes taking an escalator at terminal T2 of Prague airport. In addition to providing a time estimate for using the escalator, the API details the exact coordinates and airport level. The references between points allow developers to easily connect the individual geo locations to draw a complete route.
Routing API details
That’s just a peek into what the Airsiders Routing API can accomplish and how its intelligence solves the virtual interlining gap for industry stakeholders.
Get in touch with one of our experts by clicking the Contact Airsiders Team button below if you have any questions, or to request access to the API.
Base URL: https://cloud.airsiders.com
Routes: /routing/*
Authentication methods:
- API key in the x-api-key HTTP header
- API key in the api-key HTTP parameter.