Track ANA (All Nippon Airways) Flights Live with Our Flight Info By Flight Number API (ORD).

You need to show an accurate, live status for an ANA (All Nippon Airways, IATA: NH) flight arriving to or departing from Chicago O’Hare (ORD). By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to query FlightLabs’ Flight Info by Flight Number endpoint, parse the status, gates, terminals and times, and implement a reliable refresh loop with caching and fallbacks for cancelled or diverted operations.

About ANA (All Nippon Airways) and why ORD tracking matters

All Nippon Airways (IATA: NH) is a major Japanese carrier. It operates long-haul services linking Japan to North America, including flights that serve Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD). For developers building airport displays, travel apps, or internal tools, tracking ANA flights by flight number is often the most direct way to surface a single, high-value flight’s status, gates, and timing in near real time.

Endpoint: Detailed Flight Info by Flight Number

Use this endpoint when you have a specific ANA flight number (e.g., NH11, NH12) and want a single response that includes the flight’s current status, departure and arrival details, and (when available) the last known position. The endpoint is:

• Detailed Flight Info: https://www.goflightlabs.com/flight-info-by-flight-number

Authentication uses an API key. The example below passes it via a query parameter. Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key.

Example curl request for an ANA flight

The example below requests a specific ANA flight by its IATA flight number. Values are illustrative.

curl -G "https://www.goflightlabs.com/flight-info-by-flight-number" \
--data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY" \
--data-urlencode "flight_iata=NH12"

Illustrative JSON response

The following JSON demonstrates the response structure you can expect. Field names and structure are based on the documented samples; timestamps, gates, and coordinates are illustrative and use UTC with a trailing Z.

{
"success": true,
"data": {
"flight": {
"iata": "NH12",
"icao": "ANA12",
"number": "12",
"status": "en-route",
"departure": {
"airport": "HND",
"scheduled": "2024-03-20T16:50:00Z",
"actual": "2024-03-20T17:05:00Z",
"terminal": "3",
"gate": "112"
},
"arrival": {
"airport": "ORD",
"scheduled": "2024-03-20T23:55:00Z",
"estimated": "2024-03-21T00:10:00Z",
"terminal": "5",
"gate": "M12"
},
"position": {
"latitude": 48.7521,
"longitude": -162.3348,
"altitude": 35000,
"speed": 495,
"heading": 075
}
}
}
}

Key fields to use in an ORD-focused integration

• flight.status: High-level state such as en-route. Use it to branch UI logic (e.g., En Route, Landed, Scheduled). Treat any non-en-route/non-scheduled state as a potential exception and re-check times and gates.
• departure.* and arrival.*:
  • airport (IATA): Use to verify ORD context and present origin/destination succinctly.
  • scheduled vs actual/estimated: Compute delays by comparing the UTC timestamps. For departure, use actual - scheduled. For arrival, use estimated - scheduled.
  • terminal and gate: Show the current operational information users care about. Update these when status changes to avoid stale display.
• position.*: Only meaningful when status indicates airborne; useful for live maps and en-route confirmation.

If the flight is operated under multiple commercial numbers (codeshare), you can query each marketed flight number the same way and reconcile to your canonical record in your app. The response focuses on the requested flight number; code share flags are not shown in the example fields.

Refreshing ANA flight status programmatically

The snippet below requests the same endpoint and updates a small in-memory cache keyed by the IATA flight number. It normalizes the delay in minutes for both departure and arrival based on the UTC timestamps.

import time
import requests
from datetime import datetime, timezone

API_URL = "https://www.goflightlabs.com/flight-info-by-flight-number"
API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"

def iso_to_dt(s):
if not s:
return None
return datetime.fromisoformat(s.replace("Z", "+00:00")).astimezone(timezone.utc)

def minutes_diff(later, earlier):
if not later or not earlier:
return None
return int((later - earlier).total_seconds() // 60)

def fetch_flight(flight_iata):
params = {
"api_key": API_KEY,
"flight_iata": flight_iata
}
r = requests.get(API_URL, params=params, timeout=10)
r.raise_for_status()
payload = r.json()
if not payload.get("success"):
raise RuntimeError("API reported non-success")
return payload["data"]["flight"]

def summarize(f):
dep = f.get("departure", {})
arr = f.get("arrival", {})

dep_sched = iso_to_dt(dep.get("scheduled"))
dep_actual = iso_to_dt(dep.get("actual"))
arr_sched = iso_to_dt(arr.get("scheduled"))
arr_est = iso_to_dt(arr.get("estimated"))

dep_delay_min = minutes_diff(dep_actual, dep_sched)
arr_delay_min = minutes_diff(arr_est, arr_sched)

return {
"flight_iata": f.get("iata"),
"status": f.get("status"),
"from_airport": dep.get("airport"),
"to_airport": arr.get("airport"),
"dep_terminal": dep.get("terminal"),
"dep_gate": dep.get("gate"),
"arr_terminal": arr.get("terminal"),
"arr_gate": arr.get("gate"),
"dep_delay_min": dep_delay_min,
"arr_delay_min": arr_delay_min
}

if __name__ == "__main__":
flight_iata = "NH12" # replace with an ANA flight that serves ORD as needed
cache = {}

while True:
try:
f = fetch_flight(flight_iata)
info = summarize(f)
cache[flight_iata] = {
"data": info,
"fetched_at": datetime.now(timezone.utc).isoformat()
}
print(cache[flight_iata])
except Exception as e:
print("Error:", e)

# Polling interval: adjust based on your UI needs and rate limits
time.sleep(60)

Notes:

• Timestamps are returned in ISO-8601 with a Z suffix (UTC). Convert to local time zones for display at ORD if needed, but keep UTC internally to avoid DST edge cases.
• Delay computation uses estimated vs scheduled for arrivals and actual vs scheduled for departures. If the field is missing (None), do not compute or persist a delay value.
• Cache by flight number and keep a fetched_at timestamp. This provides a simple freshness check for your UI and reduces extraneous calls.

Practical use cases anchored to ORD and ANA

• Real-time arrival boards for ORD:
  • Use flight.status plus arrival.terminal and arrival.gate to display where the ANA flight will arrive within Terminal 5 (field shown in the example).
  • Display arrival delay in minutes by comparing arrival.estimated to arrival.scheduled.
• Gate-change notifications for a corporate travel app:
  • Monitor changes to departure.gate or arrival.gate; notify travelers only when these fields change between polling intervals.
  • Use flight.status transitions (scheduled → en-route → landed) to drive messaging cadence.
• Route and schedule sanity checks for ANA ORD service:
  • Pair this endpoint with Flight Schedules for planned times and Flight History to backfill what actually happened on recent days.
  • Compare scheduled vs actual/estimated fields over many days to compute average buffers for internal planning (high-level aggregation on your side).

Polling, caching, and handling edge cases (cancelled, diverted)

To keep your ORD-focused experience snappy without over-polling, use these patterns:

• Polling frequency:
  • Pre-departure or gate changes: every 60–120 seconds is generally sufficient for public displays.
  • Airborne tracking to final: 60 seconds provides a good cadence to reflect updated estimated arrival and position.
  • After arrival or cancellation: back off to 5–10 minutes or stop polling when terminal and gate are final and status no longer changes.
• Conditional refresh:
  • Throttle if no change in flight.status and arrival.estimated for two or more intervals.
  • Increase frequency temporarily if a gate or terminal change is detected.
• Caching:
  • Maintain a short-lived cache (e.g., 60–90 seconds TTL) keyed by flight number to minimize redundant requests when multiple app modules need the same data.
  • Persist a small historical trail (e.g., last 5 snapshots) to support “what changed” alerts without extra requests.
• Cancelled flights:
  • When flight.status indicates a cancelled state or when both actual and estimated times remain empty past scheduled, treat the segment as cancelled.
  • Clear gates/terminals in your UI if the flight is cancelled, or explicitly mark them as N/A.
• Diverted flights:
  • Watch for a change in arrival.airport away from ORD; this implies diversion. Update the destination field immediately.
  • When diverted, arrival.terminal and arrival.gate may not match the original plan. Avoid reusing stale values.

Comparing FlightLabs endpoints for ANA + ORD scenarios

FlightLabs offers multiple endpoints that can complement each other depending on where you are in the flight lifecycle and how many records you need. Here’s a technical comparison geared to ANA flights relevant to ORD:

When building an ORD screen for ANA arrivals, combine Flight Schedules (baseline plan) with Flight Info by Flight Number (live adjustments) and optionally Real-time Flight Tracking if you need airborne position for map overlays. Use Airline Flights to collect multiple ANA flights in bulk when you do not know the exact flight number list ahead of time.

Working with times, time zones, and delays

• UTC-first: The API samples use ISO-8601 UTC timestamps (e.g., 2024-03-20T23:55:00Z). Perform arithmetic in UTC to avoid DST issues, then convert for display (ORD is usually America/Chicago).
• Deriving delays: Compute delay minutes as (actual - scheduled) for departures and (estimated - scheduled) for arrivals. If a field is missing or null, do not attempt to compute delay.
• Terminal and gate stability: These can change multiple times pre-departure and pre-arrival. Treat them as dynamic rather than static schedule data.

Pagination and throughput planning for schedules

For day-of or weekly planning around ORD, use the Flight Schedules endpoint to retrieve batches of ANA flights. If you anticipate large result sets (e.g., multiple days, multi-airport buffers), expect pagination parameters to be available as documented; fetch page-by-page and back off between requests to avoid spikes. Cache schedule responses for the day and refresh periodically (e.g., every 30–60 minutes), then overlay live updates from the Flight Info by Flight Number endpoint for visible flights within the next 6–12 hours.

Error handling and reliability tips

• Transient failures: Wrap calls with retries and exponential backoff. Use a small on-disk cache during brief outages.
• Data gaps: Treat missing fields defensively. For instance, if position is absent but status is en-route, do not break the UI—display status-based messaging and keep polling.
• Canonical keys: Use the IATA flight number (NHxx) as the primary key in your cache for user-facing displays. If you also ingest ICAO, keep a cross-index (AAL123 style shown in samples, adapted for ANA) for internal reconciliation.

End-to-end example: from request to ORD arrival widget

1. Fetch current details:
   • Call Flight Info by Flight Number with flight_iata=NH12 (or your target ANA flight).
2. Compute derived data:
   • If arrival.estimated and arrival.scheduled exist, compute delay minutes.
   • Normalize gates/terminals and check if arrival.airport is “ORD”; if not, flag as diverted.
3. Render:
   • Show status, terminal/gate, and the local time conversion for scheduled/estimated.
   • Include a clear “Updated at HH:MM UTC” field from your cache’s fetched_at timestamp.
4. Refresh loop:
   • Poll every 60s while status is en-route or pre-departure; slow to 5–10 minutes when landed or cancelled.
   • Debounce notifications so users aren’t spammed by small estimated-time drifts.

Where to go next

Review the endpoints and field structures in the FlightLabs documentation, then get your key and start testing against real ANA flight numbers that operate to or from ORD. You can also prototype your internal delay metrics by pairing today’s live data with historical snapshots for trend analysis.

FAQ

• How do I handle time zones for ORD displays?
  Keep all arithmetic in UTC. Convert only for UI using the America/Chicago zone. Store raw API timestamps (UTC) alongside formatted strings to avoid re-parsing.
• What if I don’t know the exact ANA flight number serving ORD today?
  Use the Airline Flights endpoint filtered by IATA “NH” to list ANA flights, then narrow to those with arrival.airport or departure.airport equal to ORD by filtering in your code.
• Can I detect diversions reliably?
  Yes—monitor arrival.airport. If it differs from the expected ORD, consider the flight diverted and suppress previously cached gate/terminal values for ORD.
• How often should I poll during busy periods?
  For single-flight widgets, 60 seconds is a sensible starting point. Increase to every 30 seconds during final approach if you require tighter updates, and back off after landing.
• Does the endpoint support codeshares?
  You can query by the marketed flight number. If you need to reconcile multiple marketed numbers to one operated leg, query each number you surface in your app and map them to your internal flight entity.

Ready to ship your ORD-focused ANA tracking? Start with a quick test against the Flight Info by Flight Number endpoint and build from there. Get your FlightLabs API key and integrate it into your app’s refresh loop today.