Introduction

autorouter maintains a document library with aeronautical information. Using the API, clients can browse the library and download individual or a set of documents.

Eurocontrol EAD PAMS

EAD is the European AIS Database and AIS is the Aeronautical Information Service. As part of the EAD, a database of the Aeronautical Information Publications (AIPs) of all member states is maintained, dubbed Published AIP Management System (PAMS).

autorouter offers its clients access to PAMS airport plates, i.e. section AD 2 of the ENR (enroute) portion of the AIP. The use of these documents is strictly limited to flight preparation in connection with autorouter. You are not allowed to mirror the documents and serve them independently. You may also not redistribute them to 3rd parties as part of a briefing service. To do so, you need to obtain your own Eurocontrol EAD license and nominate autorouter with Eurocontrol EAD as your fulfilling agent.

Each document has a unique document ID. When a document is updated, its document ID is changed. All documents are stored and returned as PDF files.

Retrieve documents for airport

You can retrieve a list of all documents for the given validity timestamp and airport identified by ICAO ID.

HTTP GET to https://api.autorouter.aero/v1.0/pams/airport/<icao>?validity=<timestamp>

The validity parameter is optional and given in seconds since the Unix epoch. If omitted, the curent time is used. A JSON structure with information about all available documents is returned to the caller. For airport EDTY, the result would look as follows:

[
   {
      "icao": "EDTY",
      "name": "Schwabisch Hall",
      "Airport":
      [
         {
            "docid": 400000000095799,
            "heading": "AD 2 EDTY",
            "filename": "ED_AD_2_EDTY_en.pdf",
            "authority": "EDC",
            "language": "EN"
         },
         /* data omitted */
      ],
      "Arrival": [],
      "Departure":
      [
         {
            "docid": 400000000032780,
            "heading": "AD 2 EDTY 5-7-1 Standard Departure Routes - Instrument (SID) RWY 10\/28",
            "filename": "ED_AD_2_EDTY_5-7-1_en.pdf",
            "authority": "EDC",
            "language": "EN"
         },
         /* data omitted */
      ],
      "Approach":
      [
         {
            "docid": 400000000095756,
            "heading": "AD 2 EDTY 4-2-1 Instrument Approach Chart - ICAO ILS or LOC RWY 28",
            "filename": "ED_AD_2_EDTY_4-2-1_en.pdf",
            "authority": "EDC",
            "language":"EN"
          },
          /* data omitted */
     ],
     "VFR": []
   }
]

There are five sections for each airport:

• Airport
  These are general information documents and ground related documents.
• Arrival
  STARs and other IFR arrival charts.
• Departure
  SIDs and other IFR departure documents.
• Approach
  Approach plates.
• VFR
  Charts for VFR operations.

What data is provided depends on the airport and the governing body. For instance, Germany does not make VFR charts available through PAMS but only through a dedicated subscription.

Bulk airport request

You can request the document list for multiple airports at once by invoking

HTTP POST to https://api.autorouter.aero/v1.0/pams/airport

and passing a JSON array of ICAO identifiers in the body of the message. The output is identical to the single airport request.

Request individual PAMS document

HTTP GET to https://api.autorouter.aero/v1.0/pams/id/<documentid>

The document is returned or an error 404 if it’s not found. To use this API, you need to know the document ID which is provided as part of the query commands listed above.

Airport PDF package

PAMS stores each document as an individual PDF file which can be requested by document ID. On top of that, autorouter can generate an integrated single PDF file for an airport with a generated table of contents. Often, this is more practical than individual files. To request such an individual file, use the following API:

HTTP GET to https://api.autorouter.aero/v1.0/pams/airport/<icao>/package?validity=<timestamp>

Again, the validity parameter is optional and when given should contain the timestamp in seconds since the Unix epoch. The default is now. Note that the integrated file might not be available immediately but has to be created by the server on the fly so allow some time for the call to complete.

List documents

Apart from listing documents pertaining to an airport, there is also a generic interface to list documents, organized by the structure of the publishing authorities, identified by a three letter code such as EDC for Germany Civil.

HTTP GET to https://api.autorouter.aero/v1.0/pams

This returns all elements below the top structure, i.e. the publishing authorities with their code and name. The next level below is the language which is listed when querying an authority:

HTTP GET to https://api.autorouter.aero/v1.0/pams/EDC

Below each language is the structure of the documents, typically AIC, AIP, AMDT, Charts and SUP, representing the structure the authorities’ AIP. The bottom level would be the actual documents which provide similar information to the airport document query:

HTTP GET to https://api.autorouter.aero/v1.0/pams/EDC/EN/Charts/AD

[
  {
    "id": 220551,
    "docid": 400000000367034,
    "heading": "AD 2 EDAB 2-11 Aerodrome Obstacle Chart - ICAO TYPE A RWY 07\/25",
    "filename": "ED_AD_2_EDAB_2-11_en.pdf",
    "authority": "EDC",
    "aiptype": "Charts",
    "section": "AD 2",
    "series": null,
    "number": null,
    "year": null,
    "effectivestartdate": 1539216000,
    "effectiveenddate": null,
    "lasteffectivedate": 253402214400,
    "airport": "EDAB",
    "language": "EN",
    "filesize": 656459
   },
...