Getting Flights info from the Kayak API in ASP.Net December 1
Kayak is one of the top travel meta-search engines on the web, and they have a free API which allows you to get flight and hotel information.
To use the Kayak API, first get a developer key
Then you can read the full specifications to get the info. Or, just use the code below 
This gets the flights given an Origin, Destination, Departure date and the number of travellers (note: Origin & Destination must be in the form of a 3 letter Airport code, eg: MEL = Melbourne, SYD = Sydney, LAX = Los Angeles).
You can also Download the full source code
Private Function Flights(ByVal dtDepartDate As Date, _
ByVal sOriginCode As String, _
ByVal sDestinationCode As String, _
ByVal iTravellers As Integer) As DataTable
Dim sResult As String
Dim oCookies As New CookieContainer
Dim sURL As String
Dim oDoc As New System.Xml.XmlDocument
Dim sSID As String
Dim sSearchID As String
Dim bMorePending As Boolean = True
Dim oTripList As System.Xml.XmlNodeList
Dim oTrip As System.Xml.XmlNode
Dim oFlights As DataTable
Dim oFlight As DataRow
Dim iFlightsFound As Integer
Dim sDeveloperKey As String = "***Your Key Here****"
'Full specs at: http://www.kayak.com/labs/api/search/spec.html
'Get the SessionID
sURL = "http://www.kayak.com/k/ident/apisession?version=1&token=" & sDeveloperKey
sResult = sGetData(sURL, oCookies)
oDoc.LoadXml(sResult)
sSID = oDoc("ident")("sid").InnerText
'Start the Flight Search & get the SearchID
sURL = "http://www.kayak.com/s/apisearch?" & _
"basicmode=true&oneway=y" & _
"&origin=" & sOriginCode & _
"&destination=" & sDestinationCode & _
"&depart_date=" & Format(dtDepartDate, "MM/dd/yyyy") & _
"&depart_time=a&" & _
"return_date=" & _
"&return_time=a" & _
"&travelers=" & iTravellers & _
"&cabin=b&action=doflights&apimode=1&_sid_=" & sSID
sResult = sGetData(sURL, oCookies)
oDoc.LoadXml(sResult)
sSearchID = oDoc("search")("searchid").InnerText
oFlights = dtFlightsTableInit()
Do While bMorePending = True
'Get the first lot of results
sURL = "http://www.kayak.com/s/basic/flight?" & _
"searchid=" & sSearchID & _
"&c=10&apimode=1&_sid_=" & sSID
sResult = sGetData(sURL, oCookies)
oDoc.LoadXml(sResult)
bMorePending = IIf(oDoc("searchresult")("morepending").InnerText = "true", True, False)
If bMorePending = True Then
'Wait for 5 seconds, then poll again
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5 * 1000)
End If
Loop
iFlightsFound = Val(oDoc("searchresult")("count").InnerText)
'Build the final request, asking for the total number of flights found by Kayak.com
sURL = "http://www.kayak.com/s/basic/flight?" & _
"searchid=" & sSearchID & _
"&c=" & iFlightsFound & _
"&apimode=1&_sid_=" & sSID
sResult = sGetData(sURL, oCookies)
oDoc.LoadXml(sResult)
oTripList = oDoc.SelectNodes("//trip")
For Each oTrip In oTripList
oFlight = oFlights.NewRow()
oFlight("DepartDate") = oTrip("legs")("leg")("depart").InnerText
oFlight("ArriveDate") = oTrip("legs")("leg")("arrive").InnerText
oFlight("Airline") = oTrip("legs")("leg")("airline_display").InnerText
oFlight("Price") = oTrip("price").InnerText
oFlight("BookURL") = oTrip("price").Attributes("url").Value
oFlights.Rows.Add(oFlight)
Next
Flights = oFlights
End Function
Public Function dtFlightsTableInit() As DataTable
Dim dtFlights As New DataTable
dtFlights.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("DepartDate", GetType(String)))
dtFlights.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("ArriveDate", GetType(String)))
dtFlights.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("Airline", GetType(String)))
dtFlights.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("Price", GetType(String)))
dtFlights.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("BookURL", GetType(String)))
dtFlightsTableInit = dtFlights
End Function
Public Function sGetData(ByVal sURL As String, _
Optional ByRef oCookies As CookieContainer = Nothing) As String
Dim Writer As StreamWriter = Nothing
Dim WebRequestObject As HttpWebRequest
Dim sr As StreamReader
Dim WebResponseObject As HttpWebResponse
Dim sbResultsBuilder As New StringBuilder
Dim sBuffer(8192) As Char
Dim iRetChars As Integer
WebRequestObject = CType(WebRequest.Create(sURL), HttpWebRequest)
WebRequestObject.UserAgent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)"
WebRequestObject.Method = "GET"
WebRequestObject.Timeout = 55000
WebRequestObject.ReadWriteTimeout = 55000
WebRequestObject.AllowAutoRedirect = True
If Not (oCookies Is Nothing) Then
WebRequestObject.CookieContainer = oCookies
End If
WebResponseObject = CType(WebRequestObject.GetResponse(), HttpWebResponse)
sr = New StreamReader(WebResponseObject.GetResponseStream)
Do
iRetChars = sr.Read(sBuffer, 0, sBuffer.Length)
If iRetChars > 0 Then
sbResultsBuilder.Append(sBuffer, 0, iRetChars)
End If
Loop While iRetChars > 0
sGetData = sbResultsBuilder.ToString
End Function
The Kayak API is pretty good, but does have some limitations, so I think is works best when you use it for stats rather than bookings. Anyone else know of some good travel APIs?
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