Flight tracking

Flight tracking is a service that involves the tracking of flights, aircraft and airport activity, often using software.

Flight tracking enables travelers as well as those picking up travelers after a flight to know whether a flight has landed or is on schedule, for example to determine whether it is time to go to the airport.

With development of cell phones and other small PDA devices, flight trackers provide near real-time arrival and departure information for airplanes to people who need it. Modern trackers can track airlines virtually all around the world and inform concerned parties via such commonplace mediums as SMS.

Flight tracking can be integrated with travel management and travel tracking services, allowing increased automation of travel software. This application of flight tracking is currently in its infancy, but is set to grow significantly as systems get more connected.

Despite the progress, many abrupt events like sudden weather changes are not captured by existing flight trackers because they take their information not from the airplane itself but from dispatcher centers which often do not know the actual status of plane's whereabouts.[1]

Flight tracking software is available for commercial operators to track their aircraft and monitor if they deviate from an agreed flight path. If they do, a warning alarm is generated to alert to a potential problem. The type of software available also imports and reviews global weather and NOTAM information to monitor any emerging issues that could affect the flight.

List of flight tracking services
Name Initialization Notes
Airportia 2013 [2] includes data widgets
FlightArrivals.com 2000 [3]
FlightAware 2005 [4] includes API[5] / data feeds [6]
Flightradar24 2006 [7]
FlightStats.com 2005 [8] includes API
FlightView 1996 [9] Sold to OAG in 2015 [10]
OpenSky Network 2012 [11] includes free live API,[12] research initiative
Plane Finder 2009 [13] includes API[14], owned by Pinkfroot [15]
RadarBox 2007 [16] owned by AirNav Systems
VariFlight 2005 [17]

See also
  • Radar tracker - the process by which air tracks are formed from radar detections

Notes
  1. Bailey, Jeff, , The New York Times, November 15, 2007.
  2. "Internet Archive". Retrieved 2020-04-20.
  3. "Internet Archive". Retrieved 2020-04-20.
  4. "FlightAware - about". Retrieved 2014-05-03.
  5. "FlightXML: Flight Tracking API". Retrieved April 2, 2012.
  6. "Live ADS-B Flight Data Feed (Worldwide)". Retrieved April 14, 2015.
  7. "FlightRadar24 - about". Retrieved 2019-02-12.
  8. "Internet Archive". Retrieved 2020-04-20.
  9. "FlightView - about". Retrieved 2014-05-03.
  10. "OAG Takes Lead in Flight Status Market Through FlightView Acquisition". Archived from the original on 2015-05-12. Retrieved 2015-04-14.
  11. "OpenSky Network - About". Archived from the original on 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2016-02-09.
  12. "The OpenSky Network REST API on github". Retrieved March 21, 2016.
  13. "Plane Finder". Retrieved 2017-11-17.
  14. "Live and Historical ADS-B Data Feed". Retrieved April 3, 2019.
  15. "pinkfroot". Retrieved 2017-11-17.
  16. "RadarBox - about". Retrieved 2020-04-20.
  17. "VariFlight - about". Retrieved 2018-04-17.


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