Collectors · Travel

Google Flights API in Python

Flight itineraries between two airports — airline, times, stops, price, emissions. One POST from Python with departure_id and arrival_id and outbound_date, rows back as JSON with 20 fields, $0.003 per delivered itinerary. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts departure_id, arrival_id and outbound_date to the google_flights collector, a line-drawn page titled Google Flights, and a white card with the fields airline, departure_time, arrival_time, duration and stops, at $0.003 per itinerary ($3.00 per 1,000). — A Python requests call to the google_flights collector returns one dict per itinerary, at $0.003 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/google_flights/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "departure_id": "JFK",
        "arrival_id": "LAX",
        "outbound_date": "2026-09-23",
        "return_date": "2026-09-30",
        "currency": "USD",
        "max_results": 15,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("airline"), row.get("departure_time"), row.get("arrival_time"), row.get("duration"))

Python: one Google Flights run (JFK → LAX andata/ritorno), printing airline, departure_time, arrival_time, duration

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the Google Flights collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`departure_id`	string	yes	Departure airport/city IATA code, e.g. JFK.
`arrival_id`	string	yes	Arrival airport/city IATA code, e.g. LAX.
`outbound_date`	string	yes	Departure date YYYY-MM-DD.
`return_date`	string	no	Return date YYYY-MM-DD — omit for one-way.
`currency`	string	no	3-letter price currency (USD, EUR…).
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code — proxy exit geo and Google locale (gl). Omit for the default pool.
`lang`	string	no	Interface language (hl), e.g. en, it, de.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 15)	How many itineraries to deliver at most (1–30). You pay only for delivered itineraries.

Response fields

20 fields per itinerary.

Fields of each row (itinerary)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position.
`airline`	string, nullable	Operating airline(s).
`departure_time`	string, nullable	Departure time as shown.
`arrival_time`	string, nullable	Arrival time as shown.
`duration`	string, nullable	Total duration ("5 hr 53 min").
`stops`	string, nullable	"Nonstop", "1 stop"…
`price`	string, nullable	Price as shown.
`price_value`	number, nullable	Parsed numeric price.
`currency`	string, nullable	ISO currency code of the price.
`departure_airport`	string, nullable	Departure airport code.
`arrival_airport`	string, nullable	Arrival airport code.
`emissions`	string, nullable	CO2 estimate as shown.
`outbound_date`	string	Requested outbound date.
`return_date`	string, nullable	Requested return date (null = one-way).
`departure_id`	string	Departure IATA code as requested.
`arrival_id`	string	Arrival IATA code as requested.
`duration_minutes`	integer, nullable	Total duration in minutes.
`stops_count`	integer, nullable	Number of stops (0 = nonstop).
`emissions_kg`	number, nullable	CO2 estimate in kg.
`trip_type`	string	one_way or round_trip.

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/google_flights/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"departure_id":"JFK","arrival_id":"LAX","outbound_date":"2026-09-23","return_date":"2026-09-30","currency":"USD","max_results":15}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.003 per delivered itinerary.

What Google Flights rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.003
1,000	$3.00
10,000	$30.00

Up to 30 itineraries per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 666 itineraries. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free Google Flights API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 666 itineraries of this collector at $0.003 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 30 itineraries per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.003 per delivered itinerary, no subscription.

Get an API key Google Flights API