Apify Google Flights API

Google Flights API: Structured Flight Search Results

Use Google Flights as an API. There is no official Google Flights API, so developers scrape it; this Actor does that as a hosted service. Route and dates in, structured JSON out: one row per flight with price, airlines, times, stops, and duration, plus route-level price insights.

When to use this skill

• The user wants a "Google Flights API" (none exists officially; the predecessor QPX Express shut down in 2018).
• They want to scrape Google Flights results for a route into JSON or CSV.
• They want airfare data by API or from Python for a travel app, dataset, or analysis.
• They ask for a "Google Flights scraper" or "how to scrape Google Flights".

Not for: live aircraft tracking or flight status (this is a fare and search scraper, not a radar), creating reservations (it returns booking links, not tickets), or hotel searches (use the Google Hotels Actor).

What you get (one dataset item per page, flights nested in all_flights)

Each dataset item is one page of results holding an all_flights array (about 30 flights per page). Per flight: price, currency, route, airlines, airline_logo, departure_airport, departure_time, arrival_airport, arrival_time, stops, stops_label, layover_airports, duration, duration_minutes, travel_class, flight_numbers, overnight, often_delayed, carbon_emissions_g, booking_token, category. The item also carries best_flights and other_flights groupings, airports info, search_metadata, and price_insights (lowest_price, price_level, typical_price_range, plus a price_history series when Google shows one). With fetch_booking_options true (one-way only, billed per option), booking_options adds direct booking links and baggage prices.

Prerequisites

• Apify account (sign up at https://apify.com?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo).
• Authentication via apify login, or an APIFY_TOKEN environment variable (Apify Console, Settings, Integrations).

The Actor

• Store page: https://apify.com/johnvc/Google-Flights-Data-Scraper-Flight-and-Price-Search?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo
• Actor ID: johnvc/Google-Flights-Data-Scraper-Flight-and-Price-Search
• Pricing: a small per-run setup fee plus a per-page fee (see references/gotchas.md).

Run it with the Apify CLI

One-way search:

apify actors call "johnvc/Google-Flights-Data-Scraper-Flight-and-Price-Search" -i '{"departure_id":"LAX","arrival_id":"JFK","outbound_date":"2026-08-14","max_pages":1}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-api \
  2>/dev/null

Round trip, nonstop only, under a price cap:

apify actors call "johnvc/Google-Flights-Data-Scraper-Flight-and-Price-Search" -i '{"departure_id":"SFO","arrival_id":"CDG","outbound_date":"2026-09-10","return_date":"2026-09-20","max_stops":0,"max_price":900,"currency":"USD"}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-api \
  2>/dev/null

Every call carries the three flags this repo expects: --json, --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-api, and 2>/dev/null.

Run it from Claude or another AI agent (MCP)

The Actor is MCP-ready. Add the hosted server URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/Google-Flights-Data-Scraper-Flight-and-Price-Search

Then ask, for example: "Find nonstop flights from LAX to JFK on August 14 under $400 and list them by price." MCP setup docs: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp

Workflow

1. Build the route. departure_id and arrival_id take IATA codes, comma-separated for multi-airport searches (for example "CDG,ORY"). Add outbound_date (YYYY-MM-DD); add return_date for a round trip, or pass multi_city_json instead for complex itineraries.
2. Set passengers and market. adults, children, infants; currency, hl (29 languages), gl (39 countries) for localized fares.
3. Filter. max_price, max_stops (0 = nonstop), airlines (comma-separated codes), exclude_basic.
4. Bound the volume. max_pages (default 1) is the cost driver; leave fetch_booking_options off unless the user needs direct booking links (it bills per option, one-way only).
5. Estimate cost, then confirm with the user if the run is large. See references/gotchas.md.
6. Run the Actor and read the dataset. Read each page item's all_flights array, then sort or filter by price, stops, or duration_minutes; flatten to rows for CSV.

Inputs

• departure_id / arrival_id (IATA codes, comma-separated allowed) and outbound_date; return_date optional
• multi_city_json (array of route legs) for multi-city trips
• adults (default 1), children, infants
• currency (default USD), hl (enum, 29), gl (enum, 39)
• max_price, max_stops, airlines, exclude_basic (filters)
• fetch_booking_options (boolean, extra billing, one-way only), max_pages (default 1)

Cost

Billing is a small setup fee per run plus a per-page fee; a default one-page search costs a few cents. Booking options bill separately per option returned. Live prices and thresholds are in references/gotchas.md.

Honest limits

• Fares are search results at crawl time; airlines reprice constantly, so treat prices as current quotes, not guarantees.
• price_insights gives the current price level, a typical range, and, when Google shows one, a recent price_history series for the route. It is not a fare forecast.
• No reservations: booking_options returns direct links to airlines and travel sites; ticketing happens there.
• Not a flight tracker: no live aircraft position, delay feed, or gate information.

Troubleshooting

• Empty results: check the IATA codes and date format (YYYY-MM-DD); very thin routes can legitimately return few flights.
• Prices look off for the market: set currency, gl, and hl together.
• Booking options missing: fetch_booking_options must be true, and it applies to one-way searches only.

See references/gotchas.md for cost guardrails and error recovery, and references/actor-index.md for the Actor routing table.

Related travel Actors

• Google Hotels Search Scraper: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-hotels-search-scraper?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo
• Google Travel Explore API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-travel-explore-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo
• Google Maps Directions API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-maps-directions-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=skillrepo