Keeping Your Aircraft Database Up-to-Date with the JETNET API

When integrating JETNET aircraft data into your internal systems, you'll need to choose a strategy for keeping that data current. This article outlines two common approaches — pulling only changed records (delta updates), or fully replacing your dataset on a regular cadence.

Option 1: Pull Only Changed Aircraft (Delta Strategy)

Use this method if you want to minimize payload size and only update records that have changed.

How to Do It

  • Use "changes"-type request filters, such as "aircraftchanges": true, to only return records that have had changes since the last time you called those endpoints.
  • Date filters such as  actiondate, startdate, enddate can give you more control over which records are returned, based on timing.

Available endpoints using "-changes"

"aircraftchanges"

getAircraftList

getCondensedOwnerOperators

getCondensedOwnerOperatorsPaged

getBulkAircraftExport

getBulkAircraftExportPaged
"companychanges"

getCompanyList
"contactchanges"

getContactList getContactListPaged

Option 2: Full Replacement on a Cadence (Upsert Strategy)

Use this method if you want to overwrite your full aircraft dataset at regular intervals.

How to Do It

  • Use the getBulkAircraftExport or getBulkAircraftExport endpoint
  • Ingest the full dataset into your system
  • Compare by aircraftid to insert new records or update existing ones

These endpoints return the entire aircraft list, including associated company and contact details

When to Use This

  • You’re doing a scheduled refresh (e.g., nightly, weekly, monthly)
  • You want to guarantee data alignment without managing deltas
  • You have the infrastructure to support full upserts

Choosing the Right Strategy

Strategy Best For Tradeoffs
Delta updates Lower API usage, small data changes Requires accurate change tracking
Full replacement Simplicity, consistency Higher payloads, more processing

Additional Tips

  • Make sure to store and track aircraftid as your internal key
  • Consider logging response responseids or timestamps for auditing
  • Use getBulkAircraftExportPaged if you're working with a large dataset and need to retrieve records in pages

  • Consider breaking up large datasets by using filters like modlist, makelist, or specific event types (e.g., to focus on particular models, manufacturers, or changes like price/status updates).
    Reference endpoints like:

    • getAircraftModelList

    • getAircraftMakeList

    • getMakeTypeList

    • getEventTypes

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