Aviationstack

What Aviationstack does

Aviationstack provides MCP access to global aviation data through the Pipeworx gateway. The pack covers live and scheduled flights, airport records, airline records, city-to-airport mappings, country reference data, scheduled routes, and future flights at a specified airport.

The flights tool returns flight details such as departure and arrival airports, times, gates, and status. Reference tools support searches by names, IATA or ICAO codes, country codes, and other Aviationstack fields. Route queries can be narrowed by departure airport, arrival airport, airline, or flight number.

How it works

A hosted connection uses the Aviationstack pack endpoint at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/aviationstack/mcp. A full Pipeworx gateway connection is also available; both addresses use the same gateway and data sources, but the pack endpoint lists this pack's tools directly. Pack connections also expose shared Pipeworx meta-tools, including ask_pipeworx, discovery, search, and memory tools.

The server can alternatively run locally through the @pipeworx/mcp-aviationstack npm package. The local process uses stdio for MCP communication and forwards requests to the hosted gateway, so it requires network access and has no offline mode. Tool calls can also be made through the gateway's HTTP API, such as a POST request to /v1/tools/flights.

Setup and configuration

For a hosted MCP client, add the pack URL as an MCP server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aviationstack": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/aviationstack/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For local stdio use, configure npx with the package name:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aviationstack": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-aviationstack"]
    }
  }
}

The local bridge works without a key with a daily anonymous-call limit. Setting PIPEWORX_API_KEY supplies a Pipeworx account key and raises the stated daily allowance. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 if the local server should also list the gateway-wide meta-tools. A hosted connection can use the platform key or a caller-supplied Aviationstack key through the gateway's ?_apiKey mechanism.

Tools and capabilities

• flights: Query real-time and scheduled flights with optional flight, airport, airline, status, limit, and offset filters.
• airports: Search an airport directory by text, IATA code, or ICAO code; records include location, country, GPS, and timezone fields.
• airlines: Find airlines by name or code and retrieve country, hub airport, and status information.
• cities: Map a city search, IATA city code, or ISO country code to a primary airport.
• countries: Search country reference data, including capital and currency details.
• routes: Find scheduled service pairings using departure, arrival, airline, or flight-number filters.
• aviationstack_future_flights: Retrieve scheduled departures or arrivals for one airport and date, with flight number, airline, aircraft, terminal, gate, and scheduled time fields.

Limitations and notes

The future-flights endpoint accepts an IATA airport code, a direction of departure or arrival, and a date. Its available booking window is limited to tomorrow through seven days ahead in UTC; the pack rejects dates outside that range before contacting Aviationstack.

The upstream data source is Aviationstack at http://api.aviationstack.com/v1/. Access depends on the applicable plan. The free plan is described as allowing 100 requests per month and HTTP-only access. The future-flights endpoint may return 403 function_access_restricted when the platform plan does not include it. Monthly allowance exhaustion can produce HTTP 429 responses.

The integration is independent and unofficial, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Aviationstack.