Amadeus API vs Skyscanner API for Flight Search

Amadeus API vs Skyscanner API for flight search is an access question, not a beauty contest. One self-service door closed. The other never opened without a partnership review. Neither call is a ticket.

This page is for developers who typed that comparison and need the 2026 split. Ktemia’s own search contract stays on the flight search API post: POST /v1/flights, three required fields, not live yet. Nothing below is a captured TAP fare.

Key Takeaways

• Amadeus decommissioned the self-service developer portal on 17 July 2026. Enterprise APIs remain.
• Skyscanner Flights Live Prices is create-then-poll, x-api-key, after Partnerships approves you.
• A search API returns fares to compare. It does not issue a PNR.

What changed for the Amadeus API in 2026?

In February 2026, PhocusWire reported Amadeus would pause new self-service registrations, then fully decommission that portal on 17 July. Keys disabled. Portal inaccessible. The Enterprise portal and Enterprise APIs were explicitly left standing.

That is the sentence most “Amadeus API tutorial” pages still skip. If your bookmark is test.api.amadeus.com plus a free key from 2024, you are holding a shut door. “Use the Amadeus sandbox” is now an enterprise conversation, not a weekend signup.

The commercial query amadeus api vs skyscanner api for flight search developers is not “which JSON is prettier.” It is “which door still has a handle.” Comparing a decommissioned self-serve stack to a partner-gated live-prices API as if both were npm packages is how a sprint dies in week two.

Amadeus as a GDS is a different product again. Their own GDS glossary calls a global distribution system a technical intermediary that lets sellers search and book. That book step is not this URL’s job. The GDS split lives on GDS vs booking engine vs a search API.

What is the Skyscanner API, and who can call it?

Skyscanner’s Flights Live Prices overview is a search API. Origin, destination, and a date in. Flight prices out. Two POSTs: /create starts a session; /poll/{sessionToken} waits for the full list. The same stack, they say, powers search on Skyscanner’s own site.

You do not get a key by opening the docs. Authentication says submit an application with Partnerships. Partner support is blunt: the key arrives after the Partners team approves a business proposal. The Travel API product page is aimed at established businesses with a large audience; they say they reply within two weeks.

Required on /create: market, locale, currency, queryLegs, adults, plus cabin in the published samples. Header: x-api-key. HTTPS only. Do not put that key in a public repo or in browser JavaScript. Their auth page says the same.

A citation you can lift: Skyscanner Live Prices is a partner search API with create-and-poll, not a public meter. It returns flights that can later be booked. The poll is still search. It is not a ticket desk.

Amadeus API vs Skyscanner API: what actually differs?

	Amadeus (self-service, now gone)	Amadeus Enterprise / GDS	Skyscanner Live Prices
Who gets a key	Nobody new after the July 2026 cut	Account-managed enterprise	Partnerships review
Shape	Rest shopping APIs on the old portal	Enterprise APIs; GDS also books	POST /create then POST /poll
Job	Was self-serve shopping	Search and book in the GDS sense	Search live prices
Ticket	No	Booking is in the GDS/enterprise world	Not the search call

If you need a GDS terminal, you are not shopping a Skyscanner poll loop. If you need a weekend prototype with a published key form, you are not shopping remaining Amadeus Enterprise. If you need compare-without-PNR, you want a flight search API, not a reservation system.

The worked query on Ktemia stays LIS → LHR, depart 2026-10-12. Same airports in the dashboard, the POST body, and the copilot. Skyscanner’s own quick start uses other airports in their sample. Copy their shape, not their cities, onto a single-shot contract. Do not invent prices for TAP or BA here.

Do not paste a fake Amadeus Flight Offers Search response. Invented euros would look like a live test. They would be a lie.

How is this different from a Google Flights API or Kiwi Tequila?

There is no official public Google Flights API. Google shut QPX Express on 10 April 2018. Wrappers in that SERP extract Google’s UI. That is not Amadeus and not Skyscanner.

Kiwi Tequila API flights documentation is an affiliate/B2B stack that historically split /search from /booking. Deep links and booking tokens are Kiwi’s job. They are not a GDS login, and they are not Ktemia.

Ktemia is the search row: UI, APIs, and a copilot that asks when a field is missing. Flights search with AI is that vertical. Routes are not live. Terms treat a search as comparison, not a reservation.

What should you send, and what must you not guess?

Three fields on Ktemia: origin, destination, depart. If any is missing, the call must fail and the copilot must ask. It must not invent LIS because the user said “soon.”

Skyscanner adds market, locale, currency, adults, cabin. Those are their required envelope, not ours. Do not copy their poll loop onto POST /v1/flights. Do not copy our single POST onto their session token.

On Free, you get 50 API requests a month. One guessed city is a wasted call. Authenticate with a dashboard key when keys exist. Never in frontend JavaScript.

Agent wiring, when you want Cursor or Claude to call the same search, is the flights MCP post. Same three fields. Same “ask if unclear.” Different pipe.

Pick the door that still opens.

Amadeus API vs Skyscanner API is not a feature matrix from 2024. Self-service Amadeus shut. Skyscanner Live Prices is a partnership. A flight search API is origin, destination, dates, and fares you can rank.

Caps sit on pricing. If you are still weighing the field rather than these two, the full travel API comparison covers eight of them by access gate. Whichever door you open, the reason to compare across sellers rather than trust one is measured here: a $970 median spread on identical seats across 57 booking sites. The compare job for a stay, a car, and a home sits on search a trip or a move. Routes are not live. When they are, this page gets a dated example, not a prettier fiction.