Cirium vs OAG vs FlightAPI: Which is Best for Flight Status & Schedule Data?

If you’re building apps for travel, managing airport ops, or keeping cargo moving, the right flight data is critical. From customer notifications to route planning and analytics, one inaccurate data feed can set off a chain reaction nobody wants to deal with. And you’re not the only one feeling the pressure. In 2024, the aviation analytics market is valued at USD 2.58 billion, projected to climb to USD 7.45 billion by 2032. Demand for up-to-the-second flight status, accurate schedules, and deep historical datasets has never been higher.

Cirium, OAG, and FlightAPI are three of the biggest names you’ll come across when you start hunting for data that won’t let you down. 

Cirium is known for its reach and legacy, OAG brings unmatched historical depth, and FlightAPI focuses on accessibility and transparency for developers and small businesses. 

In this guide, you’ll learn about their features, data coverage, pricing, and the sort of use-cases each one truly excels at, so you can decide who earns a spot in your tech stack and who’s better left for someone else.

What Data Do FlightAPI, Cirium, and OAG Provide?

When choosing a flight status api. You’re handing over the keys to your app’s reliability, customer experience, and even compliance. Here’s a detailed Overview, Data Coverage, and Sources for each.

FlightAPI

FlightAPI is designed for today’s digital businesses, platforms, and startups that want simple, fast access to flight status, schedule, and pricing data without the complexity or cost of legacy providers. Their focus is on rapid integration, clear documentation, and cost transparency, which makes them appealing for developers, startups, and enterprises. 

Data Coverage

• Airlines & Vendors: Gets data from 700+ airlines and a broad range of third-party vendors.
  
• Real-Time Focus: FlightAPI’s core strength is up-to-the-minute data for tracking live status, flight prices (one-way, round-trip, multi-city), schedules, and airport movements as events unfold.
  
• API Capabilities: FlightAPI offers robust flight tracking capabilities through two main APIs. With the Flight Tracking API, you can track any specific plane in real time by entering its flight number, airline code, and travel date, and retrieve live details such as departure and arrival times, airports, terminals, gates, baggage info, and flight status updates. The Track Flights between Airports API lets you view all flights operating between two airports on any given date up to 365 days ahead. So you can monitor flight status, scheduled times, and airline operators across multiple routes at once. Both APIs are easy to integrate, using straightforward parameters and delivering clear, structured JSON responses that work seamlessly in travel, logistics, or tracking platforms.

Data Sources:

Direct from Airlines and Airports: FlightAPI sources live data straight from airlines and airport authorities, providing the most current and reliable flight information. So that you never have to rely on outdated or cached feeds.

Industry Partnerships: Additional accuracy comes from established partnerships with trusted aviation data providers, strengthening coverage and filling in any gaps.

No Stale Data: All updates are delivered in real time, so you always get up-to-the-minute status direct from the authoritative sources.

You can also use this API with no-code tools like Google Sheets and automation platformscheck out these tutorials to see how:

➤ Build an App to Track Flights Between Any Two Airports

➤ Create a Flight Tracking Tool with Loveable

➤ Extract Airport Schedule Data with Python

➤ Check Airport Schedule Using Google Sheet and API

➤ Track Flights Between Airports with Google Sheet

Cirium

Cirium is a popular option for aviation data. Trusted by airlines, airports, finance, tech giants, and government agencies alike. They just don’t provide a flight status API, but also deliver analytics, fleet tracking, emissions data, and more. Cirium’s approach is all about direct industry integration and building trust with layers of validation, redundancy, and partnerships. 

They’ve spent over a century refining how they gather, clean, and distribute flight data, which makes them a go-to for enterprises where accuracy and reliability are non-negotiable. 

Data Coverage

• Scheduled Flights: Cirium tracks an estimated 99.5% of all scheduled passenger flights worldwide.
• Aircraft Coverage: Cirium tracks more than 465,515 aircraft and more than 26 million scheduled operations, covering 99.5% of scheduled passenger flights.
• Airlines: 900+ airlines are represented in their data ecosystem.
• API Capabilities: Let’s you track real-time flight updates worldwide, covering every major event such as scheduled, active, landed, cancelled, or diverted. You can search by flight, route, airline, or airport and get live details on gates, terminals, runways, and baggage. The API handles disruptions like delays and diversions, delivering rich data in an easy-to-use format for any modern app or platform.

Data Sources

• Direct Airline & Airport Feeds: The backbone of their data comes straight from airlines and airports which means fewer delays, less misinformation, and richer details.
  
• Air Navigation Service Providers: These sources contribute to position and routing data and provide visibility into real flight paths.
  
• GDS Systems: Access to data from global distribution systems helps validate bookings, schedules, and operational changes.
  
• Industry Partnerships: Cirium partners with major players, notably Aireon for satellite-based ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) tracking, which extends their reach to cover aircraft literally anywhere on the globe including remote airspace.
  
• Manual Research & Validation: Dedicated teams check anomalies and validate edge cases, adding a human layer to automated quality checks.
  
• Redundancy Layers: With 2,000+ validated sources, their system cross-checks and fuses feeds, weeding out errors before they reach you.
  

OAG

OAG is another name synonymous with aviation intelligence, going back to 1929. While they started out publishing printed timetables, OAG is now a digital powerhouse, offering not just flight schedules and live status, but also huge archives of historic data. Their platform is used by airlines, airports, travel companies, financial analysts, and tech businesses needing reliable flight status and performance insights. 

Data Coverage

• Scheduled Flights: OAG covers 97% of scheduled flights globally, updating their systems with over 107,000 flights per day.
  
• Real-Time Updates: More than 1 million flight status updates and 200,000+ schedule changes processed daily, giving you near-instant access to shifts in airline operations.
  
• Historical Data: OAG stands out for archiving 15+ years of flight performance records, as well as a gigantic database of four trillion historical airfares critical for fare analysis, route optimisation, and trend forecasting.
  
• Forward-Looking Data: Their APIs support connection planning with 12 months of forward-looking schedule data.
  
• API Output: Real-time flight status, schedule, connections, historical performance, route analysis, and alerting for disruptions or schedule changes.
  

Data Sources

• Airlines and Airports: OAG’s primary data comes from direct airline and airport feeds, refreshed as often as the airline pushes new updates.
  
• Government Feeds: National and international civil aviation authorities provide official, regulatory-backed data, which is helpful for compliance and accurate reporting.
  
• Proprietary Schedule Network: OAG has built its global network of schedules, which combines official airline feeds with data from thousands of sources to create a single, unified “master” schedule that powers its analytics.
  
• Metasearch Engines, OTAs, and GDSs: Data from online travel agencies, metasearch sites, and GDS partners rounds out the coverage, allowing OAG to catch changes or gaps in official feeds.
  
• Data Validation: OAG employs a strict data quality process, validating and cross-referencing all data before it hits their public APIs.

Wrapping Up:

So now you’re aware of what each provider brings to the table: FlightAPI works brilliantly for developers and smaller businesses after quick setup and transparent pricing, Cirium is the best fit for airlines and big organisations needing top-tier analytics and reliability, and OAG is your pick if you value deep historical data and broad aviation intelligence. 

If you’re looking for straightforward data access of flight status, schedules, live airport info, and easy integration. Try FlightAPI for free today.