# FlightAware

> FlightAware is a global flight tracking and aviation data platform. It collects positions and
> flight status from ADS-B (terrestrial and Aireon space-based), multilateration, ANSP radar,
> datalink and airline flight-information feeds, and exposes that data to developers through
> AeroAPI (a query-based REST API), Firehose (a streaming JSON Lines feed), and the legacy
> FlightXML SOAP services. Authentication is a single API key sent in the `x-apikey` header for
> AeroAPI; Firehose uses a username plus a Firehose API key supplied in an initiation command over
> a TLS socket. FlightAware publishes no OAuth surface, no /.well-known/ discovery documents, and
> no first-party MCP server.

Generated by API Evangelist from this repository's apis.yml and harvested artifacts.
Independent third-party profile — not published by FlightAware.

## APIs

- [AeroAPI](https://www.flightaware.com/aeroapi/portal/): Query-based REST API, 69 operations
  across flights, foresight, airports, operators, alerts, history, account and miscellaneous.
  Base URL `https://aeroapi.flightaware.com/aeroapi`. Version 4.30.0.
- [Firehose](https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/): Real-time streaming feed of
  global flight data over a TLS socket at `firehose.flightaware.com:1501`, JSON Lines format.
  Protocol version 37.0.
- [FlightXML 2 / FlightXML 3](https://flightxml.flightaware.com/soap/FlightXML3/wsdl): Legacy SOAP
  services, superseded by AeroAPI v4 but still serving live WSDL contracts (47 and 24 operations).

## Specs

- [AeroAPI OpenAPI 3.0.2 (upstream, verbatim)](https://static.flightaware.com/rsrc/aeroapi/aeroapi-openapi.yml)
- [AeroAPI OpenAPI (mirror on flightaware.com)](https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/aeroapi/resources/aeroapi-openapi.yml)
- [FlightXML2 WSDL](https://flightxml.flightaware.com/soap/FlightXML2/wsdl)
- [FlightXML3 WSDL](https://flightxml.flightaware.com/soap/FlightXML3/wsdl)

## Docs

- [AeroAPI developer portal](https://www.flightaware.com/aeroapi/portal/)
- [AeroAPI documentation](https://www.flightaware.com/aeroapi/portal/documentation)
- [AeroAPI pricing and rate limits](https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/aeroapi/)
- [Firehose documentation](https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentation)
- [Firehose connection](https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentation/connection)
- [Firehose commands and event codes](https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentation/commands)
- [Firehose revision history](https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentation/revisionhistory)
- [Status page](https://status.flightaware.com/)
- [Developer discussions](https://discussions.flightaware.com/)
- [Blog](https://blog.flightaware.com/)

## Conventions

- Auth: `x-apikey: <key>` header on every AeroAPI request. No OAuth, no scopes.
- Pagination: `max_pages` and `cursor` query parameters; responses carry `links.next` and `num_pages`.
- Errors: JSON object with `title`, `reason`, `detail`, `status`. Not RFC 9457 (`application/json; charset=UTF-8`).
- Idempotency: none — AeroAPI documents no idempotency key.
- Rate limits: published per pricing tier as result sets per minute or per second, not as response headers.

## Notes

- FlightAware publishes no first-party SDK on any package registry. Sample applications live at
  https://github.com/flightaware/aeroapps (AeroAPI) and https://github.com/flightaware/firestarter (Firehose).
- Every FlightAware MCP server in circulation is third-party and community-built.