Skyscanner

You can deploy the Skyscanner MCP Server to expose flight and airport search capabilities to MCP clients. This server runs as a local process and communicates through the MCP protocol, enabling natural language queries like finding airports by name or searching for flights between two cities or airports.

How to use

To use the Skyscanner MCP Server, run the local server process and connect your MCP client (such as Claude Desktop) to it. You configure the client with a standard MCP server entry that launches Python to start the MCP server script, along with environment variables that set locale, currency, and market.

Once configured, you can ask natural language questions such as, “Search for flights from LHR to JFK on December 22,” or “Find airports in London.” The server exposes two main capabilities: searching airports by name, city, or IATA code, and searching flights between two airports with options for dates, cabin class, and passenger count.

How to install

Prerequisites you need before starting:

Python 3.8 or higher

Git for submodule support

Install dependencies and start the server using the commands below. Replace the absolute path with the actual location of the mcp_server.py file on your system.

# Clone with submodules (recommended)
git clone --recursive https://github.com/shadyvb/mcp-skyscanner.git
cd mcp-skyscanner

# If you already cloned without submodules:
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run the MCP server locally (example path; replace with your real path)
python3 /absolute/path/to/mcp-skyscanner/mcp_server.py

Configuration and environment

Configure the MCP client to connect to the local server by adding an MCP server entry. Use the absolute path to the server script and set environment variables for locale, currency, and market. The following snippet shows the exact configuration you should enter in your client.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "skyscanner": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-skyscanner/mcp_server.py"],
      "env": {
        "SKYSCANNER_LOCALE": "en-US",
        "SKYSCANNER_CURRENCY": "USD",
        "SKYSCANNER_MARKET": "US"
      }
    }
  }
}

Notes

The server uses the Skyscanner API client libraries to perform searches. Flight searches may take a short time while results are polled from the API. Ensure dates are provided in ISO format and are in the future, and that airport codes are used in IATA format.

Troubleshooting

If the server does not show up in your MCP client or you encounter errors, try these steps in order.

1. Verify Python path: use python3 explicitly on macOS/Linux, or provide the full path to the Python executable in the config.

2. Install dependencies: run pip install -r requirements.txt to ensure all packages are present.

3. Initialize submodules if the vendor directory is missing: git submodule update --init --recursive.

4. Check logs for errors at the expected location and review the startup output to identify missing modules or syntax errors.

5. Test starting the server manually: python3 /path/to/mcp_skyscanner/mcp_server.py to confirm there are no import errors.

Security and reliability notes

This server is intended for educational experimentation and should not be used in production environments. Use caution with API usage terms and ensure you comply with Skyscanner’s terms of service when integrating any external API.

Frequently used tips

• Use en-US as the default locale, USD as the currency, and US as the market unless you need different settings.

• When testing, try common queries like searching for flights from one airport to another on a future date, and searching for airports by city or IATA code to validate response formats.

Available tools

search_airports

Search for airports by name, city, or IATA code with optional departure and return dates.

search_flights

Search for flights between two airports with options for depart and return dates, cabin class, and number of adults; returns organized buckets of flight options.