Can I ask for a special meal or a wheelchair for my customer when I book their flight through the API?

Yes, in most cases you can. When you send a booking to the flight booking API you can normally include a special service request along with the passenger details, so a vegetarian meal, a child meal or a wheelchair at the airport is passed to the airline as part of the same booking and your staff do not have to ring anyone separately.

What you can ask for depends on the airline and on the fare your customer has chosen. Full service carriers usually accept a decent range of meal and assistance requests. Many low cost airlines treat a meal as a paid extra rather than a request, so there you are buying something rather than asking for it, and a few of them will not take assistance requests through the API at all. Your supplier also decides which of these it passes on, so the list you can actually use may be shorter than what the airline offers at its own counter.

The important thing to tell your customer is that a special request is a request and not a guarantee. The airline may hold it as pending until close to departure, and wheelchair or medical assistance in particular is often confirmed by the airline directly rather than in the booking record you can see on your screen. Requests also need to go in at the time of booking or shortly after, because trying to add one a day before the flight often fails.

Before you promise anything to a customer, check with your supplier which request codes are available on the airlines you sell most, and make it a habit to ask anyone who needs medical or mobility help to confirm it with the airline as well.