Searching airlines & airports

You no longer need to know an IATA code to find something. Both the website and the API let you search by the identifiers people actually have.

What you can search by

Entity	Search by
Airline	name (e.g. "Lufthansa"), IATA (`LH`), ICAO (`DLH`), slug id (`lufthansa`)
Airport	name, city, country, IATA (`LHR`), ICAO (`EGLL`), slug id (`lhr`)
Regulation	short name ("EU 261"), id (`eu-261-2004`)
Scenario	title, id

On the website

Use the search box in the header on any page, or open the search page directly. Results are live as you type and can be filtered by type (airlines, airports, scenarios, regulations). Each result links straight to its page.

Direct lookups (API)

An airline or airport resolves by IATA code, ICAO code, or slug id — in that order — on the same endpoint:

curl -s https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/airlines/LH        # IATA
curl -s https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/airlines/DLH       # ICAO
curl -s https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/airlines/lufthansa # slug id

curl -s https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/airports/LHR       # IATA
curl -s https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/airports/EGLL      # ICAO

Full-text search (API)

# Anything matching "Frankfurt" (airport name + city), best matches first
curl -s "https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/search?q=Frankfurt"

# Restrict to one type and cap results
curl -s "https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/search?q=Lufthansa&type=airline&limit=5"

# ICAO codes work as queries too
curl -s "https://api.flighthelp.net/v1/search?q=DLH&type=airline"

Parameters:

q (required) — the query string.
type (optional) — comma-separated: airline, airport, scenario, regulation.
limit (optional) — default 20, max 50.

Ranking puts exact code/id matches first, then whole-word matches, then prefix, then substring.

A note on airport ICAO codes

ICAO codes are present for curated airports and any bulk record that carries one. Where an airport has no ICAO code in the dataset, search still works by name, city, country, and IATA.