flight-recon-mcp 0.1.1

Flight reconnaissance MCP server: search, price calendar, layover scoring, carbon emissions, weighted optimal-path ranking. Pluggable providers (SerpApi + RapidAPI Sky-Scrapper) with automatic monthly-quota fallback.

flights-mcp

A flight-reconnaissance MCP server with one provider, one key, no KYC.

• Search flights with full pricing, every segment, every carrier, every layover
• Per-day price calendar (cheapest dates)
• Layover-quality scoring (connection-time risk, terminal change, overnight, airport reputation)
• Weighted multi-criteria ranking → "find the optimal flight path"
• Airport autocomplete

The one API you need

Provider	Free tier	Signup
RapidAPI Sky-Scrapper	100 requests / month	https://rapidapi.com/apiheya/api/sky-scrapper

Steps:

1. Sign up at https://rapidapi.com/auth/sign-up (just email).
2. Visit https://rapidapi.com/apiheya/api/sky-scrapper and click Subscribe to Test.
3. Pick the Basic (Free) plan — no card required.
4. Copy X-RapidAPI-Key from the code-snippets panel.

Quick start

git clone <repo> flights-mcp
cd flights-mcp
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e .
copy .env.example .env
# open .env and paste your RAPIDAPI_KEY
python -m flights_mcp                       # stdio MCP server

Wire it into your MCP client

Claude Desktop

Edit claude_desktop_config.json (macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/; Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flights": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "flights_mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PYTHONPATH": "C:/path/to/flights-mcp/src",
        "RAPIDAPI_KEY": "your_rapidapi_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Full example: examples/claude_desktop_config.json.

Cursor / Continue / Cline / generic MCP clients

Most clients accept the mcp.json form. The ${RAPIDAPI_KEY} placeholder there is not a real key — the client substitutes it from your shell env or its secret store at launch. Real keys live in .env (gitignored) or your client's secret store.

Tools

Tool	Purpose
search_airports	City/airport → IATA, name, country
search_flights	Search w/ full segments, carriers, durations, layovers, prices
cheapest_dates	Per-day price calendar across upcoming dates
analyze_layovers	Score each layover: MCT, terminal change, overnight, airport quality
rank_options	Multi-criteria weighted scoring on a set of offer IDs
find_optimal_path	One-shot: search + rank + return top N with rationale
compare_offers	Side-by-side comparison table

Ranking model

Each criterion is normalised to [0, 1] across the candidate set (1 = best), then combined with caller-tunable weights:

Criterion	Default	Meaning
price	0.40	Lower total → higher score
duration	0.25	Shorter total travel time → higher
stops	0.15	Non-stop > 1 stop > 2 stops
layover_quality	0.15	Connection time, terminal change, overnight, airport reputation
seat_quality	0.05	Best-effort: cabin class signal from search results

Override per call:

find_optimal_path(
  origin="SFO", destination="SIN", departure_date="2026-07-04",
  weight_price=0.10, weight_layover_quality=0.40, weight_duration=0.30
)

Weights are auto-normalised, so any positive numbers work.

Layover heuristics

analyze_layovers and the layover_quality criterion penalise:

Connection length	Penalty
< 45 min	heavy — below most carriers' Minimum Connection Time
45–60 min	moderate (tight)
60–180 min	none (sweet spot)
180–360 min	small (long wait)
> 360 min	moderate (very long)

Plus penalty for overnight and terminal-change layovers. Small bonus for premium hubs (SIN, HKG, ICN, DOH, DXB, ZRH, AMS, CPH, HEL, MUC, FRA, ATL…); small penalty for delay-prone hubs (EWR, LGA, ORD, PHL, MIA, FCO, MAD).

Project layout

flights-mcp/
├── README.md
├── mcp.json                       # MCP manifest — env-var placeholders only
├── pyproject.toml
├── .env.example                   # one signup URL, one key
├── src/flights_mcp/
│   ├── __main__.py                # python -m flights_mcp
│   ├── server.py                  # FastMCP server, 7 tools
│   ├── config.py
│   ├── models.py                  # Airport / FlightOffer / Itinerary / Segment / Layover
│   ├── ranking.py                 # weighted multi-criteria scoring
│   ├── cache.py
│   └── providers/
│       ├── base.py
│       └── rapidapi.py            # Sky-Scrapper client + normaliser
├── examples/
│   ├── claude_desktop_config.json
│   └── sample_queries.md
└── tests/test_ranking.py

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
$env:PYTHONPATH = "src"
pytest                                       # Windows PowerShell
# PYTHONPATH=src pytest                      # macOS / Linux
python tests\_live_smoke.py                  # live RapidAPI call (uses one quota credit)

Security note

API keys live in .env (gitignored) or your MCP client's secret store. The mcp.json in this repo contains only ${VAR_NAME} placeholders — never literal keys.

License

MIT.