Introduction
SkyLink is a REST API that delivers aviation data as JSON over HTTPS through the RapidAPI gateway. You subscribe once, send authenticated requests to a single base URL, and receive structured responses for weather, airports, flights, live and historical aircraft tracking, charts, alerts, and more — without hosting ingestion pipelines or maintaining data feeds yourself. This page orients you to what the API covers, which version to use, and where each topic is documented. It does not describe individual endpoints; those live in the version reference sections.
What's Covered
- Weather — real-time surface observations and forecasts, en-route advisories, and US winds aloft
- Airports — airport profiles, runways, frequencies, navaids, and multi-mode search across 74,000+ airports
- Flight operations — live flight status, departure and arrival schedules, distance and bearing, AI preflight briefings
- ADS-B tracking — live aircraft positions with registration, type, and airline enrichment
- Historical ADS-B — archived aircraft position data; 90-day windows on Pro+, up to 365 days on Ultra or Mega (v3.1)
- Aircraft lookup — 615,000+ aircraft records by tail number or ICAO24 hex
- Aerodrome charts — chart PDFs for 91 countries (approach, SID, STAR, ground, general)
- Alerts and advisories — NOTAMs and FAA NAS delay programs
- ML and AI — flight time estimation, CO₂ emissions, and AI-generated briefings
- Routes and webhooks — callsign route resolution and push notifications on flight events (v3.1)
API Versions
SkyLink ships three active versions under one RapidAPI host. The path prefix (or its absence) selects the version — you do not change hosts between versions.
| Version | Prefix on RapidAPI | Status |
|---|---|---|
| v3.1 | (none — e.g. /weather/metar/KJFK) | Latest — recommended for all new projects |
| v3 | /v3 | Stable, full-featured |
| v2 | /v2 (in base URL) | Maintained for backward compatibility |
https://skylink-api.p.rapidapi.comNew integrations should start on v3.1. Returning users on v3 or v2 can jump straight to that version's overview.
How This Documentation Is Organised
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Getting Started | FREE Trial application, RapidAPI subscribe, credentials, key security, public endpoints, first request |
| Error Handling | HTTP error shapes, gateway vs API layers, retry rules |
| Rate Limits | Plan quotas, quota headers, overage pricing, Historical ADS-B path tiers |
| v3.1 Reference | Complete endpoint index for the latest version (start here) |
| v3 Reference | Stable endpoint index |
| v2 Reference | Legacy endpoint index |
Each endpoint reference page documents the path, parameters, response shape, client types, integration notes, and endpoint-specific error codes. Platform-wide errors (authentication, validation, rate limits, server failures) are documented once in Error Handling and linked from every reference page.
New to SkyLink? Start with Getting Started, then open the v3.1 API Reference. Debugging a failed request? See Error Handling. Hitting quota limits? See Rate Limits.