airport_lookup
Look up any airport worldwide by IATA code, ICAO code, or name/city search. Returns airport details including type, municipality, and coordinates.
Instructions
Look up an airport by IATA code (3 letters, e.g. "LHR"), ICAO code (4 chars, e.g. "EGLL"), or free-text name/city search (e.g. "heathrow"). Covers 85,555 airports worldwide (OurAirports, public domain, cross-checked vs OpenFlights + Wikidata).
Provide ONE of iata, icao, or query; the optional type filter narrows results. Behavior: read-only; exact code hits return one record; ambiguous name searches return ranked candidates (exact codes first, then larger airports) with match quality reported via the envelope's confidence (basis match_quality); an unknown code errors with a not-found message. Rate-limited (anonymous use: 25 requests/day per IP): a 429 error body carries retry_after_seconds and a Retry-After header — back off and retry, or call get_subscribe_link for higher limits.
Returns: count and results[] — per airport: IATA + ICAO/ident, name, type (large/medium/small/heliport/closed/seaplane), municipality, region, country, latitude/longitude and elevation_ft — under result, plus confidence, _source and citation (the FreightUtils v1 response envelope).
Limitations: reference data only — not for navigation; verify operationally critical codes with IATA / ICAO.
Related: nearest_airport (find airports FROM a coordinate), airline_lookup (searches CARRIERS / AWB prefixes, not airports), unlocode_lookup (general transport locations, of which airports are one function).
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| iata | No | Exact 3-letter IATA code. Example: "LHR". | |
| icao | No | Exact 4-character ICAO / ident. Example: "EGLL". | |
| type | No | Optional filter by airport type. | |
| query | No | Name / city / municipality search (min 2 chars). Example: "heathrow". |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| ok | Yes | ||
| result | Yes | ||
| _source | Yes | ||
| citation | Yes | ||
| validity | No | ||
| warnings | No | ||
| confidence | Yes | ||
| blocking_errors | No | ||
| envelope_version | Yes | ||
| normalized_input | No |