Google Flights API — What Happened and Best Alternatives

Google Flights API. What happened to the Google Flights API, why it was discontinued, and the best Google Flights API alternatives for developers. Compare flight data APIs, get real-time flight status, schedules and pricing data.

Sergey St.

Published on May 29th 26

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Google Flights API — What Happened and Best Alternatives

Google Flights API. What happened to the Google Flights API, why Google discontinued its QPX Express API, and which flight data APIs developers should use instead. Google Flights API alternatives, free flight API options and real-time aviation data for your applications.

What Was the Google Flights API?

The Google Flights API, officially known as the QPX Express API, was a flight search and pricing API that Google offered to developers through the Google Cloud Platform. Launched as part of Google's acquisition of ITA Software in 2011 for $700 million, the QPX Express API allowed developers to search for flight itineraries, retrieve fare information and access airline pricing data programmatically.

The QPX Express API provided access to the same flight search engine that powers Google Flights — the consumer-facing flight comparison tool at google.com/flights. Developers could send search queries specifying origin, destination, travel dates and passenger counts, and receive back a structured response with available itineraries, fare breakdowns and carrier information.

However, Google discontinued the QPX Express API on April 10, 2018. The official announcement stated that the API was being shut down and would no longer be available to developers. Google did not provide a direct replacement, leaving thousands of travel applications, startups and booking platforms scrambling to find alternative flight data sources.

"Google's QPX Express API was shut down in April 2018 with no direct replacement. Developers who relied on it had to find alternative flight data sources. Today, modern aviation data APIs offer broader coverage — including real-time tracking, live schedules, fleet data and airport information — capabilities that QPX Express never provided."

Why Google Discontinued the Flights API

Google never publicly disclosed the exact reasons for shutting down the QPX Express API, but several factors likely contributed to the decision:

• Strategic refocus — Google wanted to keep the flight search technology exclusively for its own Google Flights product rather than providing it to potential competitors. By restricting API access, Google could drive more traffic to its own consumer flight search interface and monetize through advertising.
• Data licensing complexity — airline pricing data is governed by complex agreements with GDS providers (Global Distribution Systems). Maintaining API access for third-party developers added licensing costs and legal complexity that Google was not willing to sustain.
• Low monetization — the QPX Express API charged per query but was significantly underpriced compared to the value of flight pricing data. At $0.035 per request with a free tier, it was not a sustainable business model for data that costs airlines millions to generate and distribute.
• Competitive concerns — allowing developers to build competing flight search products using Google's own data created a strategic conflict. Many QPX Express users were building OTAs and fare comparison tools that directly competed with Google Flights.
• Shift to partnerships — Google transitioned to direct partnerships with airlines and booking platforms through its Travel platform, which generates revenue through referral fees rather than API access.

What the Google Flights API Offered

Before its shutdown, the QPX Express API provided the following capabilities:

As the comparison shows, while QPX Express provided fare pricing data that AirLabs does not, AirLabs offers an entire suite of aviation data capabilities that QPX Express never had — real-time tracking, live schedules, fleet databases, airport geolocation and flight alerts. For the vast majority of travel application use cases, the data available through AirLabs is more comprehensive than what QPX Express provided.

Google Flights API Alternatives

Since the shutdown of QPX Express in 2018, the flight data API landscape has evolved significantly. Developers today have several categories of alternatives to choose from, each serving different use cases:

1. Aviation Data APIs (Flight Status, Tracking, Schedules)

These APIs provide operational flight data — real-time positions, departure/arrival schedules, delays, airline information and airport data. They are the best choice for applications that need to display flight information, build tracking tools, show airport timetables or integrate aviation data into business workflows.

AirLabs is an aviation data API. Our platform provides:

• Real-time flight positions — latitude, longitude, altitude, speed and heading for aircraft worldwide, updated every few seconds
• Live airport schedules — departure and arrival boards for any airport, with gate, terminal, status and delay information
• Flight information — detailed status for any individual flight by flight number, including codeshare data
• Global databases — airports, airlines, aircraft fleets, routes, cities, countries and timezones

Here is an example of the real-time data available through the AirLabs Flights API:

https://airlabs.co/api/v9/flights?airline_iata=AA&api_key={API_KEY}

[{
  "hex": "A12345",
  "reg_number": "N787AL",
  "flag": "US",
  "lat": 40.6413,
  "lng": -73.7781,
  "alt": 10972,
  "dir": 225,
  "speed": 870,
  "flight_iata": "AA100",
  "flight_icao": "AAL100",
  "dep_iata": "JFK",
  "dep_icao": "KJFK",
  "arr_iata": "LHR",
  "arr_icao": "EGLL",
  "airline_iata": "AA",
  "airline_icao": "AAL",
  "aircraft_icao": "B789",
  "status": "en-route"
}]

2. Flight Booking and Pricing APIs

If your primary need is fare search and ticket booking — the specific functionality that QPX Express provided — you need a booking API rather than a data API. Booking APIs connect to GDS systems and provide real-time fare search, seat availability and reservation capabilities. AirLabs does not provide fare pricing or booking functionality — our focus is operational flight data. If you need fares, you can pair AirLabs (for flight tracking, schedules and airport data) with a separate booking API (for pricing and reservations) to get complete coverage for your travel application.

3. Web Scraping Approach

Some developers attempt to scrape Google Flights directly using headless browsers or third-party scraping services. While technically possible, this approach has significant drawbacks: it violates Google's Terms of Service, is unreliable due to frequent UI changes, is slow compared to proper APIs, cannot provide real-time tracking data, and can result in IP bans. A structured flight data API is always a more reliable and maintainable choice for production applications.

Why AirLabs as a Google Flights API Alternative

AirLabs is designed specifically for developers who need reliable, structured aviation data. Here is why developers choose AirLabs after the Google Flights API shutdown:

• No Google dependency — AirLabs sources data independently from airlines, airports and ADS-B receivers worldwide. Your application does not depend on Google's product decisions.
• Broader data coverage — unlike QPX Express which only offered fare search, AirLabs provides real-time tracking, live schedules, flight alerts, fleet databases, airport information and route networks in a single API.
• Simple REST API — JSON responses over HTTP, just like the QPX Express API. No SOAP, no XML, no complex authentication. One API key, standard HTTP requests.
• Free tier available — start building immediately with a free plan. No credit card required, no commitment. Scale up when your application grows.
• Global coverage — data for airports, airlines and flights worldwide, not limited to specific regions or carriers.
• Active development — AirLabs is actively maintained and improved, with new endpoints and data sources added regularly.

Migrating from Google Flights API to AirLabs

If you previously used the QPX Express API and need to migrate, the transition is straightforward. While AirLabs does not replicate QPX Express fare search, it covers the operational data layer that many QPX Express users actually needed:

The AirLabs API uses the same RESTful pattern as QPX Express — HTTP GET requests with query parameters, JSON responses, API key authentication. Developers familiar with the QPX Express request/response format will find the transition intuitive.

Google Flights API Alternative for Developers

If you are a developer looking for a Google Flights API alternative, AirLabs provides the aviation data infrastructure you need. Whether you are building a flight tracking application, an airport information display, a travel planning tool or an airline analytics platform, our API delivers the data in a format that is easy to integrate and reliable to use.

Supported API Features

Our Developer API allows you to create a custom experience for your users and increase the value of your product:

• Real-Time Flights API with global aircraft positions, altitude, speed and heading.
• Live Airport Schedules with departures, arrivals, gates, terminals, delays and codeshare data.
• Flight Information API for individual flight status lookup by flight number.
• Flight Alert API for push notifications on flight status changes.
• Airlines database with detailed carrier information for 15,000+ airlines.
• Airports database with IATA/ICAO codes, geolocation, timezone and connections for 9,000+ airports.
• Aircraft Fleets database with registration, model, manufacturer and age data.
• Global Routes database with airline route networks worldwide.
• NearBy API to find airports by geographic coordinates and radius.
• Name Suggestion API for autocomplete of airport and airline names.
• Countries, Cities and Timezones databases for geographic context.

You can try it right now without any obligation! Get a free flight API plan and see for yourself that we have exactly the data you need!

If you need more information, don't hesitate to contact us. We are always happy to chat with our customers and are sure to find a customized solution for each request.