IATA and entity ID

For places and locations the Skyscanner APIs use iata or entityId. You can choose which type you wish to use as the location object will accept either to be passed to it.

Example, with IATA and entity ID being used:

{
  "query": {
    ...
    "queryLegs": [
      {
        "originPlaceId": {
          "iata": "EDI" // The IATA code for the "Edinburgh" airport
        },
        "destinationPlaceId": {
          "entityId": "27544008" // The internal Skyscanner ID for the "London" city
        },
      }
    ]
    ...
  }
}

tip

We recommend that you use the Entity IDs (Skyscanner's code) which is very similar to IATA but solves ambiguous cases where a city and one of its airports share the same code.

IATA

IATA codes are available for airlines, airports and cities. They are often used internationally and recognized by multiple airlines and airports. Search IATA Codes

Entity ID

Entity IDs are Skyscanner's internal codes for all the geographical entities we support. They don't have any meaning outside of the Skyscanner APIs. Unlike IATA codes, entity IDs are guaranteed to be unique so we recommend using them to prevent potential ambiguous searches, for example when an airport and city share the same IATA code.

How do you get a IATA or Entity Id?

We provide a Geo API where you can get all the IATA and Entity IDs. See Geo API Documentation

We also provide a Autosuggest API which will also return the IATA and Entity IDs. (Note: This is a V1.0 API) See Autosuggest API Documentation