Amadeus Self-Service API Shutdown — What Developers Should Know

Amadeus Self-Service API is shutting down July 17, 2026. What this means for developers, which functionality you lose, what alternatives exist for flight data, and how to migrate your aviation data layer to keep your application running.

Sergey St.

Published on May 29th 26

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What Is Happening with Amadeus Self-Service API?

Amadeus confirmed in February 2026 that it is decommissioning the self-service portion of the Amadeus for Developers portal. New developer registrations have already been paused, and on July 17, 2026, all self-service API keys will be disabled and the portal will become inaccessible.

This affects thousands of travel startups, indie developers and small teams who have built applications on Amadeus Self-Service APIs — from flight search tools and booking platforms to airport information displays and airline data integrations.

This guide explains what is happening, what functionality is affected, what is not affected, and how developers can migrate the flight data layer of their applications.

"Amadeus is moving away from lightweight developer-first tools and focusing on enterprise access. If you are a startup or independent developer who relied on the self-service portal, you need to plan your migration before July 17."

What Is Being Shut Down?

The Amadeus Self-Service API portal provided free-tier and pay-as-you-go access to a range of travel APIs. Developers could sign up, get an API key in minutes, and start building. This portal is being permanently decommissioned.

What is shutting down on July 17, 2026:

• All self-service API keys will be disabled
• The self-service developer portal will become inaccessible
• No new registrations are accepted (already paused)
• All applications using self-service API keys will stop receiving data

What is NOT affected:

• The Amadeus Enterprise portal continues to operate normally
• Enterprise customers can continue using Enterprise APIs without interruption
• Enterprise customers using both self-service and enterprise APIs were advised to contact their account managers to migrate

The critical distinction is clear: Amadeus is not shutting down its API business — it is shutting down the self-service, developer-friendly access point. The enterprise product, which requires a commercial agreement and significantly higher costs, remains available. For startups and small teams, this effectively means Amadeus APIs are no longer accessible.

What Functionality Are Developers Losing?

The Amadeus Self-Service portal offered APIs across several categories. Not all of them have direct alternatives in other platforms. Here is a breakdown of what was available and where AirLabs can help:

The honest picture: AirLabs replaces the aviation data and reference data portions of the Amadeus Self-Service API — airport search, airline lookup, flight status, route information and geographic search. AirLabs does not replace the booking and fare search functionality (Flight Offers, Flight Create Orders, Seatmap, Hotels). If your application depends on fare search and ticketing, you will need a separate booking API provider alongside AirLabs for the data layer.

However, if your application primarily uses Amadeus for flight status, airport data, airline information and route lookups — and many applications do — AirLabs is a complete replacement that you can migrate to today.

What AirLabs Offers That Amadeus Self-Service Did Not

While the comparison above shows areas where AirLabs cannot replace Amadeus, there are significant capabilities that AirLabs provides and Amadeus Self-Service never offered:

• Real-time flight tracking — live aircraft positions with latitude, longitude, altitude, speed and heading worldwide. The Real-Time Flights API provides ADS-B-based positioning that Amadeus never had.
• Live airport schedules — the Schedules API returns real-time departure and arrival boards with actual gate, terminal, delay and codeshare data — updated as conditions change, not just the planned schedule.
• Flight delay monitoring — the Flight Delay API provides real-time delay data across all airports, designed for airport transfer services and insurance delay compensation platforms.
• Flight alerts — the Flight Alert API provides webhook-based push notifications when any tracked flight changes status, gate, terminal or delay — something Amadeus Self-Service required polling to achieve.
• Aircraft fleet data — the Fleets Database provides aircraft registration numbers, models, manufacturers, engine types and age data — essential for aviation analytics and tracking applications.
• Codeshare identification — the Schedules API returns explicit codeshare fields (cs_airline_iata, cs_flight_iata) that identify the operating carrier for codeshare flights.

For many applications, the combination of AirLabs' real-time data capabilities with its reference databases provides a more comprehensive data foundation than Amadeus Self-Service ever offered — despite not covering the booking and fare search domain.

Migration Guide — Moving from Amadeus to AirLabs

If you are currently using Amadeus Self-Service APIs for flight data, airport search or airline information, migrating to AirLabs is straightforward. Both platforms use RESTful JSON APIs with API key authentication.

Step 1: Audit Your Amadeus API Usage

Before migrating, review which Amadeus endpoints your application actually calls. Many applications use Amadeus for a mix of data and booking operations. If you separate these:

• Data operations (airport search, airline lookup, flight status, routes) → migrate to AirLabs
• Booking operations (fare search, pricing, orders) → migrate to a booking API provider

Step 2: Map Endpoints

Here is how the most commonly used Amadeus data endpoints map to AirLabs:

Airport & City Search → AirLabs Suggest + Airports DB

Amadeus (before):
GET /v1/reference-data/locations?keyword=LON&subType=AIRPORT

AirLabs (after):
GET /api/v9/suggest?q=London&api_key={KEY}
GET /api/v9/airports?city_code=LON&api_key={KEY}

The AirLabs Name Suggestion API handles autocomplete, while the Airports Database provides full airport details including IATA/ICAO codes, geolocation, timezone, connections and multilingual names in 40+ languages.

Nearest Airport → AirLabs NearBy

Amadeus (before):
GET /v1/reference-data/locations/airports?latitude=51.5&longitude=-0.12

AirLabs (after):
GET /api/v9/nearby?lat=51.5&lng=-0.12&distance=50&api_key={KEY}

The AirLabs NearBy API returns airports and cities within any radius, sorted by distance, with exact distance values in kilometers.

Flight Status → AirLabs Flight Info

Amadeus (before):
GET /v2/schedule/flights?carrierCode=BA&flightNumber=117&scheduledDepartureDate=2026-06-15

AirLabs (after):
GET /api/v9/flight?flight_iata=BA117&api_key={KEY}

The AirLabs Flight Info API returns comprehensive flight data including real-time position (lat/lng), departure and arrival times, terminal, gate, baggage carousel, delay duration, codeshare information and aircraft registration — all in a single request.

Airline Lookup → AirLabs Airlines DB

Amadeus (before):
GET /v1/reference-data/airlines?airlineCodes=BA

AirLabs (after):
GET /api/v9/airlines?iata_code=BA&api_key={KEY}

The AirLabs Airlines Database returns detailed carrier data including fleet size, average fleet age, accident history, operational status and social media links for airlines worldwide.

Step 3: Update Authentication

Replace your Amadeus OAuth2 authentication with the simpler AirLabs API key authentication. Amadeus required a client_id/client_secret exchange to obtain a bearer token that expired every 30 minutes. AirLabs uses a single API key passed as a query parameter — no token refresh logic needed:

Amadeus: Authorization: Bearer {token}  (expires every 30 min)
AirLabs: ?api_key={KEY}  (does not expire)

This simplifies your authentication code significantly and eliminates token refresh failures as a potential point of failure.

Step 4: Adapt Response Parsing

Both APIs return JSON, but the response structure differs. The key differences:

• Amadeus wraps responses in a data array with meta metadata. AirLabs returns a response array with a request object.
• Amadeus uses camelCase field names (departureDate). AirLabs uses snake_case (dep_time).
• Amadeus uses ISO country subdivisions (US-NY). AirLabs uses ISO country codes (US) with separate city and timezone fields.

The migration primarily involves updating your response parsers to match AirLabs field names. The data semantics are the same — it is a structural change, not a conceptual one.

Timeline — What to Do Before July 17

If you are affected by the Amadeus Self-Service shutdown, here is a recommended timeline:

• Now (May–June 2026) — audit your Amadeus API usage, identify which endpoints your application calls, and sign up for a free AirLabs API key at airlabs.co/signup.
• June 2026 — implement and test the AirLabs integration alongside your existing Amadeus integration. Run both in parallel to verify data consistency and response compatibility.
• Early July 2026 — switch your production traffic from Amadeus Self-Service endpoints to AirLabs endpoints. Monitor error rates and response times.
• July 17, 2026 — Amadeus Self-Service API keys are disabled. Your application should already be running on AirLabs by this date.

Starting your migration now gives you six weeks of buffer before the deadline — enough time to implement, test and deploy without rushing.

Amadeus API Alternative for Developers

If you are looking for an Amadeus API alternative for the flight data and reference data portion of your application, AirLabs provides a direct migration path with several advantages:

• No enterprise contract required — AirLabs offers self-service access with a free tier and pay-as-you-go pricing. No sales calls, no minimum commitments, no enterprise contracts.
• Simpler authentication — API key authentication instead of OAuth2 token exchange. No token expiration, no refresh logic.
• Broader flight data — real-time tracking, delay monitoring, flight alerts and fleet data that Amadeus Self-Service never provided.
• Faster integration — most developers migrate from Amadeus to AirLabs in 1–3 days for the data endpoints.
• Consistent API design — all endpoints follow the same RESTful pattern with consistent field naming and response structure.

Supported API Features

Our Developer API allows you to create a custom experience for your users and increase the value of your product:

• Real-Time Flights API with global aircraft positions, altitude, speed and heading.
• Flight Information API for detailed status by flight number with delay data.
• Flight Delay API for real-time delay monitoring across airports and flights.
• Flight Alert API for webhook-based push notifications on status changes.
• Live Airport Schedules with departures, arrivals, gates, terminals and codeshare data.
• Airlines Database with carrier information for airlines worldwide worldwide.
• Airports Database with geolocation, timezone and connections for airports worldwide.
• Aircraft Fleets Database with registration, model, manufacturer and age data.
• Global Routes Database with airline route networks.
• NearBy API for airport search by geographic coordinates and radius.
• Name Suggestion API for autocomplete of airport and airline names.
• Countries, Cities and Timezones databases for geographic context.
• JSON, XML and CSV response formats.

You can try it right now without any obligation! Get a free flight API plan and see for yourself that we have exactly the data you need!

If you need more information, don't hesitate to contact us. We are always happy to chat with our customers and are sure to find a customized solution for each request.