Skip to main content

A Python wrapper for Google Flights API

Project description

🛫 Fli - Flight Search MCP Server and Library

A powerful Python library that provides programmatic access to Google Flights data with an elegant CLI interface. Search flights, find the best deals, and filter results with ease.

🚀 What makes fli special? Unlike other flight search libraries that rely on web scraping, Fli directly interacts with Google Flights' API through reverse engineering. This means:

  • Fast: Direct API access means faster, more reliable results
  • Zero Scraping: No HTML parsing, no browser automation, just pure API interaction
  • Reliable: Less prone to breaking from UI changes
  • Modular: Extensible architecture for easy customization and integration

MCP Server

pipx install flights

# Run the MCP server on STDIO
fli-mcp

# Run the MCP server over HTTP (streamable)
fli-mcp-http  # serves at http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp/

MCP Demo

Connecting to Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fli": {
      "command": "/Users/<user>/.local/bin/fli-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Note: Replace <user> with your actual username. You can also find the path to the MCP server by running which fli-mcp in your terminal.

Quick Start

pip install flights
# Install using pipx (recommended for CLI)
pipx install flights

# Get started with CLI
fli --help

CLI Demo

Features

  • 🔍 Powerful Search

    • One-way flight searches
    • Flexible departure times
    • Multi-airline support
    • Cabin class selection
    • Stop preferences
    • Custom result sorting
  • 💺 Cabin Classes

    • Economy
    • Premium Economy
    • Business
    • First
  • 🎯 Smart Sorting

    • Price
    • Duration
    • Departure Time
    • Arrival Time
  • 🛡️ Built-in Protection

    • Rate limiting
    • Automatic retries
    • Comprehensive error handling
    • Input validation

CLI Usage

Search for Specific Flights

# Basic search
fli search JFK LHR 2025-10-25

# Advanced search with filters
fli search JFK LHR 2025-10-25 \
    -t 6-20 \              # Time range (6 AM - 8 PM)
    -a BA KL \             # Airlines (British Airways, KLM)
    -s BUSINESS \          # Seat type
    -x NON_STOP \          # Non-stop flights only
    -o DURATION            # Sort by duration

Find Cheapest Dates

# Basic search for cheapest dates
fli cheap JFK LHR

# Advanced search with date range
fli cheap JFK LHR \
    --from 2025-01-01 \
    --to 2025-02-01 \
    --monday --friday      # Only Mondays and Fridays

CLI Options

Search Command (fli search)

Option Description Example
-t, --time Time range (24h format) 6-20
-a, --airlines Airline codes BA KL
-s, --seat Cabin class ECONOMY, BUSINESS
-x, --stops Maximum stops NON_STOP, ONE_STOP
-o, --sort Sort results by CHEAPEST, DURATION

Cheap Command (fli cheap)

Option Description Example
--from Start date 2025-01-01
--to End date 2025-02-01
-s, --seat Cabin class ECONOMY, BUSINESS
-x, --stops Maximum stops NON_STOP, ONE_STOP
--[day] Day filters --monday, --friday

MCP Server Integration

Fli includes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows AI assistants like Claude to search for flights directly. This enables natural language flight search through conversation.

Running the MCP Server

# Run the MCP server on STDIO
fli-mcp

# Or with uv (for development)
uv run fli-mcp

# Or with make (for development)
make mcp

# Run the MCP server over HTTP (streamable)
fli-mcp-http  # serves at http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp/

Claude Desktop Configuration

To use the flight search capabilities in Claude Desktop, add this configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json:

Location: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flight-search": {
      "command": "fli-mcp",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

After adding this configuration:

  1. Restart Claude Desktop
  2. You can now ask Claude to search for flights naturally:
    • "Find flights from JFK to LAX on December 25th"
    • "What are the cheapest dates to fly from NYC to London in January?"
    • "Search for business class flights from SFO to NRT with no stops"

MCP Tools Available

The MCP server provides two main tools:

  • search_flights: Search for specific flights with detailed filters
  • search_cheap_flights: Find the cheapest dates across a flexible date range

Python API Usage

Basic Search Example

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from fli.models import (
    Airport,
    PassengerInfo,
    SeatType,
    MaxStops,
    SortBy,
    FlightSearchFilters,
    FlightSegment
)
from fli.search import SearchFlights

# Create search filters
filters = FlightSearchFilters(
    passenger_info=PassengerInfo(adults=1),
    flight_segments=[
        FlightSegment(
            departure_airport=[[Airport.JFK, 0]],
            arrival_airport=[[Airport.LAX, 0]],
            travel_date=(datetime.now() + timedelta(days=30)).strftime("%Y-%m-%d"),
        )
    ],
    seat_type=SeatType.ECONOMY,
    stops=MaxStops.NON_STOP,
    sort_by=SortBy.CHEAPEST,
)

# Search flights
search = SearchFlights()
flights = search.search(filters)

# Process results
for flight in flights:
    print(f"💰 Price: ${flight.price}")
    print(f"⏱️ Duration: {flight.duration} minutes")
    print(f"✈️ Stops: {flight.stops}")

    for leg in flight.legs:
        print(f"\n🛫 Flight: {leg.airline.value} {leg.flight_number}")
        print(f"📍 From: {leg.departure_airport.value} at {leg.departure_datetime}")
        print(f"📍 To: {leg.arrival_airport.value} at {leg.arrival_datetime}")

Running Examples

We provide 11 comprehensive examples in the examples/ directory that demonstrate various use cases:

# Run examples with uv (recommended)
uv run python examples/basic_one_way_search.py
uv run python examples/round_trip_search.py
uv run python examples/date_range_search.py

# Or install dependencies first, then run directly
pip install pydantic curl_cffi httpx
python examples/basic_one_way_search.py

Available Examples:

  • basic_one_way_search.py - Simple one-way flight search
  • round_trip_search.py - Round-trip flight booking
  • date_range_search.py - Find cheapest dates
  • complex_flight_search.py - Advanced filtering and multi-passenger
  • time_restrictions_search.py - Time-based filtering
  • date_search_with_preferences.py - Weekend filtering
  • price_tracking.py - Price monitoring over time
  • error_handling_with_retries.py - Robust error handling
  • result_processing.py - Data analysis with pandas
  • complex_round_trip_validation.py - Advanced round-trip with validation
  • advanced_date_search_validation.py - Complex date search with filtering

💡 Tip: Examples include automatic dependency checking and will show helpful installation instructions if dependencies are missing.

Examples

For comprehensive examples demonstrating all features, see the examples/ directory:

# Quick test - run a simple example
uv run python examples/basic_one_way_search.py

# Run all examples to explore different features
uv run python examples/round_trip_search.py
uv run python examples/complex_flight_search.py
uv run python examples/price_tracking.py

Example Categories:

  • Basic Usage: One-way, round-trip, date searches
  • Advanced Filtering: Time restrictions, airlines, seat classes
  • Data Analysis: Price tracking, result processing with pandas
  • Error Handling: Retry logic, robust error management
  • Complex Scenarios: Multi-passenger, validation, business rules

Each example is self-contained and includes automatic dependency checking with helpful installation instructions.

Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/punitarani/fli.git
cd fli

# Install dependencies with uv
uv sync --all-extras

# Run tests
uv run pytest

# Run linting
uv run ruff check .
uv run ruff format .

# Build documentation
uv run mkdocs serve

# Or use the Makefile for common tasks
make install-all  # Install all dependencies
make test         # Run tests
make lint         # Check code style
make format       # Format code

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

Project details


Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

flightapi_test-0.7.10.tar.gz (11.0 MB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

flightapi_test-0.7.10-py3-none-any.whl (134.6 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file flightapi_test-0.7.10.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: flightapi_test-0.7.10.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 11.0 MB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.9.6

File hashes

Hashes for flightapi_test-0.7.10.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 ca93c225c9564232f837315a6b668a722a6729d43e4c0a8f40ac5d8792ea5b85
MD5 d9fa6105437699c90b990965d5e56250
BLAKE2b-256 724b3c6d4474253ecb8f50368068af1366cdb139f9028fa475bb4d02104c5f0f

See more details on using hashes here.

File details

Details for the file flightapi_test-0.7.10-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for flightapi_test-0.7.10-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 1519beff3e5ddf8c9430570783be5fbc2d1b71826b7d0479695ea6b966642c79
MD5 d52e15a321b79524f731a568b098c85e
BLAKE2b-256 3ac81ed897affc86ec39c0841a2e564989df753fa08047a0c79d6f8190a262d3

See more details on using hashes here.

Supported by

AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Depot Continuous Integration Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Pingdom Monitoring Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page