“Flight Tracking API For Small-scale Commercial Use…what’s Actually Worth It?

Hey all – working on a dispatch system for a small airport shuttle service. One of the components is adjusting pickup times based on flight delays/early arrivals.

I’ve been researching flight tracking APIs and so far I’ve come across:

– AeroDataBox (~$15-30/mo on RapidAPI)

– Airlabs ($49/mo for 25K queries)

– FlightAware AeroAPI ($100/mo minimum)

– FlightStats/Cirium (enterprise pricing, way out of budget)

We’re only tracking maybe 30-40 domestic arrivals per day at one airport (PHX). Not looking for anything fancy – just arrival ETAs, delay notifications, and maybe gate/terminal info if available.

Push notifications/webhooks would be awesome so we’re not wasting API queries polling, but polling would be doable if the price is right.

Anyone else working with flight data at a small scale? Something cheaper/better that I’m missing? Open to scrappy solutions too – just needs to be stable enough for a real business.