Travelpayouts Python API Docs | dltHub

Build a Travelpayouts-to-database pipeline in Python using dlt with AI Workbench support for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

Last updated:

Travelpayouts API provides flight price trends and data; it uses IATA codes for cities and offers endpoints for airlines, alliances, and cities; access requires an API token. The REST API base URL is https://api.travelpayouts.com and Requests require an X‑Access‑Token header or a token query parameter containing the API token..

dlt is an open-source Python library that handles authentication, pagination, and schema evolution automatically. dlthub provides AI context files that enable code assistants to generate production-ready pipelines. Install with uv pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Travelpayouts data in under 10 minutes.


What data can I load from Travelpayouts?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Travelpayouts:

ResourceEndpointMethodData selectorDescription
prices_monthlyv1/prices/monthlyGETdataMonthly average price statistics for a given route.
citiesdata/en/cities.jsonGETList of city objects with IATA codes.
flight_search_resultsv1/flight_search_resultsGETdataResults of a flight search identified by a UUID.
airlinesv1/reference/airlinesGETdataReference data for airlines.
airportsv1/reference/airportsGETdataReference data for airports.

How do I authenticate with the Travelpayouts API?

Include the X‑Access‑Token header with your API token, or add a "token=YOUR_TOKEN" query parameter to each request.

1. Get your credentials

  1. Log in to your Travelpayouts account.
  2. Go to your Profile page.
  3. Locate the section titled "API token".
  4. Copy the token value displayed there.
  5. Store the token securely for use in dlt configuration.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

[sources.travelpayouts_source] api_key = "YOUR_API_TOKEN"

dlt reads this automatically at runtime — never hardcode tokens in your pipeline script. For production environments, see setting up credentials with dlt for environment variable and vault-based options.


How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

dlt ai init --agent <your-agent> # <agent>: claude | cursor | codex

This installs project rules, a secrets management skill, appropriate ignore files, and configures the dlt MCP server for your agent. Learn more →

2. Install the rest-api-pipeline toolkit:

dlt ai toolkit rest-api-pipeline install

This loads the skills and context about dlt the agent uses to build the pipeline iteratively, efficiently, and safely. The agent uses MCP tools to inspect credentials — it never needs to read your secrets.toml directly. Learn more →

3. Start LLM-assisted coding:

Use /find-source to load data from the Travelpayouts API into DuckDB.

The rest-api-pipeline toolkit takes over from here — it reads relevant API documentation, presents you with options for which endpoints to load, and follows a structured workflow to scaffold, debug, and validate the pipeline step by step.

4. Run the pipeline:

python travelpayouts_pipeline.py

If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:

Pipeline travelpayouts_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds 1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset travelpayouts_data The duckdb destination used duckdb:/travelpayouts.duckdb location to store data Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

Inspect your pipeline and data:

dlt pipeline travelpayouts_pipeline show

This opens the Pipeline Dashboard where you can verify pipeline state, load metrics, schema (tables, columns, types), and query the loaded data directly.


Python pipeline example

This example loads prices_monthly and flight_search_results from the Travelpayouts API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

import dlt from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources @dlt.source def travelpayouts_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value): config: RESTAPIConfig = { "client": { "base_url": "https://api.travelpayouts.com", "auth": { "type": "api_key", "api_key": api_key, }, }, "resources": [ {"name": "prices_monthly", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/prices/monthly", "data_selector": "data"}}, {"name": "flight_search_results", "endpoint": {"path": "v1/flight_search_results", "data_selector": "data"}} ], } yield from rest_api_resources(config) def get_data() -> None: pipeline = dlt.pipeline( pipeline_name="travelpayouts_pipeline", destination="duckdb", dataset_name="travelpayouts_data", ) load_info = pipeline.run(travelpayouts_source()) print(load_info)

To add more endpoints, append entries from the resource table to the "resources" list using the same name, path, and data_selector pattern.


How do I query the loaded data?

Once the pipeline runs, dlt creates one table per resource. You can query with Python or SQL.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("travelpayouts_pipeline").dataset() sessions_df = data.prices_monthly.df() print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

SELECT * FROM travelpayouts_data.prices_monthly LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

import dlt data = dlt.pipeline("travelpayouts_pipeline").dataset() data.prices_monthly.df().head()

See how to explore your data in marimo Notebooks and how to query your data in Python with dataset.


What destinations can I load Travelpayouts data to?

dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:

DestinationExample value
DuckDB (local, default)"duckdb"
PostgreSQL"postgres"
BigQuery"bigquery"
Snowflake"snowflake"
Redshift"redshift"
Databricks"databricks"
Filesystem (S3, GCS, Azure)"filesystem"

Change the destination in dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. See the full destinations list.


Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI Workbench:

  • data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
  • dlthub-runtime — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.
dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install

Was this page helpful?

Community Hub

Need more dlt context for Travelpayouts?

Request dlt skills, commands, AGENT.md files, and AI-native context.