NZ Airports

Goal

Query live arrivals and departures data for supported New Zealand airports through a small deterministic CLI with human-readable and JSON output, without browser automation or account login.

AKL, CHC, ZQN, and WLG use airport/airline-published FIDS-style boards with scheduled and estimated times. AKL also keeps an optional adsb.lol live ADS-B aircraft-position view via --source adsb.

Use this when

• A user asks for current arrivals or departures at a supported NZ airport
• A user wants to look up a flight number on a supported airport flight board
• A user needs lightweight machine-readable NZ airport FIDS-style data, or current aircraft-position data near AKL
• A workflow needs a fast read-only alternative to opening airport flight-board pages

Do not use this for

• Booking, check-in, ticketing, PNR, passenger, baggage ownership, or account actions
• Aviation tracking outside the supported airport surfaces and AKL local ADS-B view
• Historical flight status or delay analysis
• Airports not listed by the airports command

Preferred workflow

1. Run scripts/cli.py with the narrowest subcommand that answers the task
2. Use arrivals or departures with --airport CODE when a specific airport is known
3. Use flight <flight-number> when the user asks about a specific flight
4. Use airports to confirm currently supported airport codes
5. Use --json for agent chaining, comparisons, or structured reports
6. Mention the source type: AKL/CHC/ZQN/WLG default to live public airport-board snapshots; AKL --source adsb is live aircraft-position data

CLI

Run with:

python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py <command> [flags]

Commands

• arrivals [--airport AKL|CHC|ZQN|WLG] [--source fids|adsb] [--limit N] [--json] - current arrivals board; --source adsb is AKL-only
• departures [--airport AKL|CHC|ZQN|WLG] [--source fids|adsb] [--limit N] [--json] - current departures board; --source adsb is AKL-only
• flight <flight-number> [--airport AKL|CHC|ZQN|WLG] [--source fids|adsb] [--json] - lookup a flight number across current boards, or current AKL ADS-B callsigns
• airports [--json] - list supported airports and investigated gaps

Examples

python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py arrivals --airport AKL --limit 5
python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py arrivals --airport AKL --source adsb --limit 5
python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py arrivals --airport CHC --limit 10
python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py departures --airport ZQN --limit 10 --json
python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py arrivals --airport WLG --json
python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py flight NZ5640 --json
python3 skills/nz-airports/scripts/cli.py airports

Notes

• Supported sources: Auckland (AKL), Christchurch (CHC), Queenstown (ZQN), and Wellington (WLG)
• AKL defaults to Auckland Airport's scheduled FIDS API from the mobile app v5 backend. It exposes airline-published scheduled/estimated times, gates, terminals, baggage carousel, and status text where available.
• AKL --source adsb is a live ADS-B view from adsb.lol. It shows aircraft actually broadcasting near Auckland Airport right now and classifies low-altitude traffic as arrivals or departures from altitude and vertical-rate signals.
• CHC, ZQN, and WLG are scheduled FIDS-style airport boards. They expose airline-published scheduled/estimated times, gates, terminals, and status text where available.
• Christchurch uses public JSON endpoints split by domestic/international and arrivals/departures
• Queenstown uses public JSON endpoints for arrivals and departures; the CLI filters to today's NZ board when possible
• Wellington embeds the current flight-board JSON in the public flight page; departures can be empty late in the local operating day
• Auckland Airport's public website flight-board surface was investigated, but direct fetches and CloakBrowser/CDP attempts returned Cloudflare challenge/block pages from this environment. The mobile app v5 FIDS API is reachable directly.
• AKL FIDS requires operator-supplied AKL_API_USERNAME and AKL_API_PASSWORD; the repository does not bundle the mobile application's Basic credentials.
• CHC, ZQN, WLG, the local airport directory, and the AKL ADS-B source do not require credentials. No account cookie, browser session, or write action is used.
• Endpoint shapes can change without notice because these are unofficial public website surfaces
• API and stability notes: references/api-notes.md
• CLI entrypoint: scripts/cli.py