How to Choose a Flight Booking API for Your Travel Business

A flight booking API (application programming interface) lets your own website, app or booking tool search airline fares, hold seats, issue tickets and handle changes by sending requests to a provider's system. To choose one, check four things: whether it can issue the airlines on your routes, whether the whole ticket lifecycle works through it (refunds and reissues included), whose IATA (International Air Transport Association) code issues the tickets, and how you pay. Test all of it in a sandbox before you sign.

Key points

• A complete booking API covers search, fare rules, price check, hold, issue, void or cancel, refund and reissue. Check which of these a provider really supports.
• Content comes from GDSs (Global Distribution Systems), airline NDC (New Distribution Capability), aggregators and direct airline connections. Most providers combine several.
• If the provider issues tickets under its own IATA code, you need no IATA accreditation of your own. Confirm your own registration needs with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism.
• Two money flows matter: how you pay the provider (often a prepaid wallet) and how your customers pay you.
• Compare the cost per ticket sold, not the headline fee. Your own development is often the largest cost.

What is a flight booking API?

A flight booking API is a set of machine-to-machine requests that let your software book and ticket real flights through a provider. Two other things share the name, so be precise with developers and vendors:

• Flight data APIs (flight status, tracking, schedules) show flights but cannot sell a ticket.
• API at the airport usually means Advance Passenger Information, the passport data airlines send to border authorities.

This guide is about booking APIs, the kind that end with an e-ticket number.

What should a flight booking API do?

It should do every step an agent does in a booking system. A complete API covers eight operations.

Some APIs stop at "issue" and "cancel" and leave refunds and changes to email, so check the last three steps first. Our void, refund and reissue guide explains the rules behind them.

Who needs a flight booking API?

Any business that wants flights inside its own product: online travel agencies (OTAs) selling on their own website or app, corporate travel tools, apps that want to add flights for customers they already have, and agencies serving sub-agents through a portal they control.

An API suits companies with developers. Your team still builds the search pages, passenger forms, customer payments, e-ticket emails and after-sales screens. If that is too much, compare the options in our build vs buy guide.

Where does a flight API's content come from?

From four kinds of source, and most providers combine several:

• A GDS such as Sabre, Travelport or Amadeus: most full-service airlines, classic fares and mature after-sales.
• Airline NDC: IATA's data exchange format based on offers and orders, which lets an airline send its own fares, bundles and extras.
• An aggregator or consolidator: several of these sources behind one API, usually with ticketing included.
• Direct airline connections: an airline's own system, common for domestic and low-cost airlines.

On Bangladesh routes, check how each airline is reached. Biman sells through the GDSs. US-Bangla signed a distribution agreement with Travelport in 2022 (Bangladesh Monitor). Not every domestic or low-cost airline is available through every GDS, so ask the provider which airlines it can issue, not just show.

What each route needs (contracts, certification, deposits) and what it costs is compared in GDS API vs aggregator vs NDC.

Do I need IATA accreditation to use a flight booking API?

Not if your provider issues the tickets under its own IATA accreditation, as Ticket Lagbe does (IATA code 42343755). You need your own only if you connect to a GDS directly and want to issue tickets yourself. With a provider that tickets for you, the provider's IATA code is on the ticket and the provider settles with the airlines through BSP, IATA's Billing and Settlement Plan. You pay the provider.

Selling air tickets in Bangladesh generally needs a trade licence and a travel agency registration, with or without IATA. Confirm your own registration needs with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism (MoCAT). Our guide on how to start a travel agency in Bangladesh sets out the steps, and the status of the January 2026 ordinance (which would have banned ticket sales between agencies, and has since ceased to have effect). Our IATA vs non-IATA guide compares the two routes.

How do payments work with a flight booking API?

There are two separate money flows.

Paying the provider

• Prepaid wallet. Many providers ask you to keep a wallet balance. Each ticket is deducted when it is issued, so keep enough to issue before the time limit.
• Credit. Some providers give established partners a credit line with a due date.
• BSP. If you issue under your own IATA code, you pay the airlines through BSP on fixed dates, whether or not your customer has paid.
• Foreign providers usually bill in US dollars, paid through your bank under Bangladesh Bank's foreign exchange rules. Ask your bank what it needs before you sign.

Collecting from customers

Travellers in Bangladesh pay by card through a payment gateway, by bKash and other mobile financial services (MFS), by bank transfer, and by Bangla QR, the single interoperable QR code Bangladesh Bank told banks and MFS providers to adopt by 30 June 2026 (The Financial Express). Refunds travel back along the same chain, from airline to provider to you to your customer, so agree each step in writing.

How do you choose a flight booking API?

Use this checklist, and ask for each answer in writing.

1. Sandbox. Is there a test environment where you can search, hold, issue and cancel without creating real tickets? Can you test refunds and reissues there too?
2. Content. Which GDSs, NDC airlines and direct airlines are connected? Test your 20 busiest routes, including Biman, US-Bangla, Novo Air and Air Astra if you sell domestic flights.
3. Full lifecycle. Do fare rules, price check, refunds and reissues work through the API, or only search, book and cancel?
4. Ticketing licence. Whose IATA code issues the ticket? Check it with IATA's CheckACode service, and ask for the trade licence and the ministry registration.
5. Money. How is the wallet funded, in which currency, and how is an unused balance paid back? Who sets the markup?
6. Support. Which hours and contacts, and how are ticketing problems escalated at night and at weekends?
7. Documentation. Are the docs clear and versioned? Will you get notice before changes that could break your integration?
8. Exit. What happens to your bookings and balance if you leave?

How much does a flight booking API cost?

Quotes vary because providers bundle different things, so compare the cost per ticket you sell. A partner typically pays for some of these:

• Setup or onboarding: a one-off fee with some providers.
• Your own development: booking screens, payments, hosting and maintenance.
• Per-booking charges: a fee per order or segment, a percentage, or a margin inside the net fare.
• Search volume: some providers charge when you search far more than you book. Duffel, a global flights API, publishes a fee per excess search above a 1,500:1 search-to-book ratio, alongside a per-order fee and a 2% foreign exchange fee (Duffel pricing, checked 9 November 2026).
• Working capital: the balance you keep in the wallet so tickets can be issued at once.
• Customer payment fees: gateway and MFS charges.
• People: staff for after-sales, schedule changes and support.

Your income is the markup or service charge you add on top of the provider's price.

How does the Ticket Lagbe Flights API work?

Ticket Lagbe, a B2B travel platform in Dhaka, gives approved travel companies API access to the flight content its agents book.

• Operations: search, fare rules, price check, hold, ticket issue and cancel/void, plus refund and reissue requests.
• Content: 1050+ airlines through Sabre, Travelport (Galileo), Amadeus, airline NDC and direct airline connections, including US-Bangla Airlines, Novo Air and Air Astra. Biman Bangladesh comes through the GDSs.
• Ticketing: tickets are issued under Ticket Lagbe's IATA accreditation (code 42343755), so partners do not need their own.
• Payment: bookings are paid from your Ticket Lagbe wallet.
• Access: a test (sandbox) environment; API keys and documentation once your application is approved.
• Price: quoted per partner. Contact the team for a quote.

Ticket Lagbe holds trade licence TRAD/DSCC/034340/2023, with its office at Meem Tower, 104 Sukrabad Rd, Dhaka 1207.

Apply for the Ticket Lagbe Flights API.