Key concepts

You'll need to understand a few important concepts to get started with finding and booking flights using the Duffel API.

To search for flights, you create an offer request. An offer request describes the passengers and where and when they want to travel (in the form of a list of slices). It may also include additional filters (for example, a particular cabin to travel in).

A slice represents a journey that the passengers want to make between a particular origin and a particular destination. For the origin and destination, you simply provide the IATA code for an airport, for example London Heathrow Airport (LHR) or for a city, for example New York (NYC). An offer request includes one or more slices.

We'll send your search to a range of airlines, and come back to you with a series of offers. Each offer represents a bundle of flights you can buy from an airline at a particular price that meet your search criteria. Each airline can send back multiple offers, so you can potentially get back hundreds or even thousands.

Inside the offer, you'll see your slices, but now each slice will also include a list of one or more specific flights that the airline is offering to get the passengers where they want to go. Each flight is known as a segment. A journey from London to New York could be direct, made up of one segment, or there could be one or more connections in the middle, meaning multiple segments. All lists of slices and segments will be ordered by those departing first.

Once you've found an offer you want to book, you create an order, passing in the offer's ID, additional information about each passengers (for example their name and date of birth) and payment information.

One-way direct trip

We create an offer request for two passengers who want to travel from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to New York (NYC) on 1st May.

Duffel sends the search to a range of airlines, and gets an offer back from British Airways, costing £1,532. Inside the offer, we have the slice we specified: LHR to NYC on 1st May.

Inside that slice, we have one segment: LHR to New York's John F Kennedy Airport (JFK), travelling on a British Airways operated flight, BA117, departing at 08:30 on 1st May.

One-way indirect trip

We create an offer request, again for two passengers who want to travel from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to New York (NYC) on 1st May.

Duffel sends the search to a range of airlines, and gets an offer back from Virgin Atlantic, costing £482. Inside the offer, we have the slice we specified: LHR to NYC on 1st May. But this time, inside that slice, we have two segments:

  • LHR to Boston's Logan International Airport (BOS), travelling on VS4011, a flight marketed by Virgin Atlantic but operated by Delta Air Lines, departing at 09:40 on 1st May
  • BOS to New York's LaGuardia Airport (LGA), travelling on VS3277, a flight marketed by Virgin Atlantic but operated by Delta Connection, departing at 14:00 local time on 1st May

Return direct trip

We create another offer request, this time for one passenger who wants to travel from London (LON) to Toronto (YTO) on 1st May and return on 8th May.

Duffel sends the search to a range of airlines, and gets an offer back from WestJet, costing £431. Inside the offer, we have the two slices we specified: LON to YTO on 1st May, and YTO to LON on 8th May.

Inside the LON to YTO slice, we have one segment: London's Gatwick Airport (LGW) to Toronto's Pearson International Airport (YYZ), travelling on a WestJet operated flight, WS4, departing at 12:50 on 1st May.

Inside the YTO to LON slice, we also have one segment: YYZ to LGW, travelling on a WestJet operated flight, WS3, departing at 20:40 on 8th May.

Return indirect trip

We create the same offer request again: from London (LON) to Toronto (YTO) on 1st May, returning on 8th May, for one passenger. Duffel sends the search to a range of airlines, and gets an offer back from Air Canada, costing £396. Inside the offer, we have the two slices we specified: LON to YTO on 1st May, and YTO to LON on 8th May.

Inside the LON to YTO slice, we have one segment: LHR to YYZ, travelling on an Air Canada operated flight, AC869, departing at 08:30 on 1st May.

But inside the YTO to LON slice, we have two segments:

  • YYZ to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD), travelling on an Air Canada operated flight, AC509, departing at 14:55 on 8th May
  • ORD to LHR, travelling on AC5364, a flight marketed by Air Canada but operated by United, departing at 18:25 on 8th May

Multi-city direct trip

A multi-city trip is one with more than two slices. For example, I might create an offer request for travel from LON to JFK on 1st May, NYC to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on 4th May, and SFO to LON on 8th May.

Duffel sends the search to a range of airlines, and gets an offer back from British Airways, costing £763. Inside, we have three slices, each with one segment:

  • LHR to JFK, travelling on a British Airways operated flight, BA183, departing at 19:50 on 1st May
  • JFK to SFO, travelling on AY76, a flight marketed by Finnair but operated by American Airlines, departing at 07:00 on 4th May
  • SFO to LHR, travelling on a British Airways operated flight, BA284, departing at 16:35 on 8th May