FlightAware – Track Your Flight Live

Have you ever dreamt about the checking flight destination of the plane that is flying above your head? The future is in nowadays reality already. FlightAware is the high-tech radar system for tracking the flights – it is one of the most huge, convenient, and there is a possibility to use it for free. The coverage is the whole planet and the information is comprehensive. The flight tracker has already multiplied its client base to more than 12, 000, 000 passengers. Over 10, 000, 000 airline operators rely on the services of the company. Besides, The flight tracker is available 24/7. The Company was founded in March 2005 and it became the first system in the USA that allows tracking free either private or commercial boards. The service has quickly made its mark and it continues to grow in popularity worldwide in its niche. Nowadays, it is a privately owned company with its offices in Huston, New York, and Singapore.

Flight Aware supplies the flight data in real time. It is a full set of the information about delays in airports, fuel prices, operating tools, weather maps, data on flight planning, routes (oceanic ones as well), navigational charts, as well as air news and photos for more than 10 million users a month. The company created the online resources for the desktop and mobile devices.

It also executes the launch, setting up, and the software maintenance for the operational vehicle and supervisory control, as well as the commissioning and service of Flight Information Display System (FIDS). Besides, it supplies the reported data to the aircrafts and the airport operators.

The Flight Aware Tracker Genesis

As it was already said, the company was established in March 2005. However, the idea of its creation began as a project in 2004. The coup de grace was the personal motivation, as usual. The pioneer of the Internet distributed computing, one of the first Internet providers and the author of TCP/IP Unleashed book for Macmillan Computer Publishing, Daniel Baker, used to travel a lot and he didn’t want his family to worry about him. So, he set about trying to make the flight tracker let them track his flights. As he has already had the competitors, he decided to use the win-win competitive edge – to make the service absolutely free. David McNett and the founder of NeoSoft Karl Lehenbauer became his partners.

On March 17, 2005, the dream came true and the company started processing the live flight data officially and legally. They located their office in the business district Green Plaza in Huston that allows saving funds due to the no state income tax or city tax. The cost of doing business in Huston was three times the amount to do the same work in Manhattan. In the first 18 months, they managed to make a profit of more than $1 000 000.

Flightaware staff

How does the Flight Tracking operate?

The plane tracker makes possible to follow the air traffic in any area of the airspace 24 hours a day without any breaks. The unique experience is created by ADS-B and radar data that are integrated together with the airlines’ flight data. The main operating points:

  • FlightAware gets signals through the flight control systems that are located in more than 55 countries.
  • The company owns the network ADS-B receiver that covers 150 countries (FlightFeeder).
  • The FlightFeeder includes an external antenna and demands the Internet connection through the Ethernet.
  • The FlightFeeder fits virtually all the modern ADS-B packages.
  • It uses the global data communication links (satellite/VHF) by such credible providers as SITA, ARINC, Garmin, Satcom Direct, Honeywell GDC, and UVdatalink.
  • The app’s reliable, clear and fast interface based on HyperFeed engine.

Live flight tracker allows easily connecting with your own FlightFeeder over LAN to get all the information. Moreover, you are able to select to view flight data on the company’s official site.

What ADS-B is? It is the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast – the technological solution for finding the aircraft coordinates with the aid of GPS. Then it broadcasts the coordinates and the other data (speed, height, the route, etc) to the user. This tech provides the high accuracy and speed of updating data. Besides, it is easy to install and to track flights, doesn’t cost too much. The FlightAware’s algorithm is the following:

Step 1
The certain aircraft determines its position via the satellite navigation system.
Step 2
The plane with the receiver broadcasts the information every second.
Step 3
The ground stations accept the data and transmit it to the radar server.

There were 7 965 ADS-B FlightAware’s websites in 141 states already in 2016. In the same year, the Aireon Company became their partner in order to supply the aircraft for tracking their boards, as it was the GADDS requirement in response to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s tragedy.

Flightaware-track flight online

FlightAware – the data it can trace

The Flight Aware is able to track a flight of the board in any area of the planet. It covers dozens of countries. However, it still needs the better coverage in some regions. The best coverage is in the USA, UK, Germany, Netherland, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy for now. Here are the first three countries with the largest number of websites and tracked flights.

  • 1. USA – has 5,877 website and total 116,155,914 tracked flights.
  • 2. UK – has 1,241 websites and 42.180.857 tracked flights.
  • 3. Germany – there are 722 websites there and 27,287,863 tracked flights.

The flight tracker map allows determining the most traced cities as well. Washington, London, and New York as the leaders should be mentioned. The greatest number of websites are in Huston (USA), but the most of the traced flights took place in London. Let’s see the list of top-10 cities.

  • Washington (USA)
  • London (UK)
  • Amsterdam (Netherland)
  • Denver (USA)
  • Dallas (USA)
  • Chicago (USA)
  • Huston (USA)
  • Rotterdam (Netherland)
  • Philadelphia (USA)
  • Atlanta (USA)

As for the regions, North America is undoubtedly a leader for now. Europe and Asia are on the second and the third place of the rating respectively. The more detailed information, ratings, and statistics are at flightaware.com. In general, the real-time flight tracker traces the 830 world aircraft from 167 countries and 29, 783 their boards at 6, 934 airports.

What is the flight track website’s capability?

Live Flight Tracking – here you are able to find the options that meet your needs. You can track the airport delays or the weather, see the cancelation statistics or the misery map, or learn everything about the mobile flight tracker apps.

The website for tracking flights offers many additional products to make your opportunities wider. For example, you can get FlightAware TV to display the information on an HDTV map, to buy the premium account for sending the request for FlightFeeder, or to know how to build a receiver with a Raspberry PI.

Is also possible to see the photos and to read the other users’ comments, as well as to see the current, new, and popular squawks, to take part in the discussions and talks.

There are separate pages for presenting the full information about the airplane tracker and its contacts.
The flight tracking online mode allows carrying out the research in some ways.

Track your plane with FlightAware

1. The first one is to use the search forms on the top of all pages. You can search by the flight number, board, airport or the population center (some of them are in the IATA encoding).

2. The second method is to hover over the board icon and to see its tail number and type. After you’ve clicked the board, it is possible to see the following information:

  • Flight number
  • Name of the airline
  • Board number
  • Status (on its way, landed, etc)
  • Airport of departure and entry
  • Time of departure and arrival
  • Travel time and time left
  • Total distance
  • Direct distance
  • Board’s description with the photos
  • Map of the planned and direct routes
  • Speed
  • Altitude

3. Then you can find the plane according to the city or its IATA code using the simple search on the website.

4. One more method is to look through the planes of the certain airline company.

5. The air track is possible by the name of the airport (it is necessary to fill in the search form with the IATA code of the certain airport).

6. The search of the board type is also provided.

What can the flight tracker trace?

The international flights tracker is able to follow the planes that belong to dozens of airline companies, whether they are the famous giants or small firms. The aircraft types that the service can track:

  • Beechcraft Super King Air-200, 1900
  • Boeing 737-800, 777-300ER, 737-700, 767-300, 787-9, 777-200, 787-8, 777, 737 MAX-9, 767-400, 767-500, 767-600, 767-200, 757-300 and others
  • Airbus A320, A321, A319, A330-300, A330-200, A380-800, A350-900, A330, A340-300, A300F4-600, A318, A340-600, A-310, etc
  • Embraer ERJ-190, 170-175, 175, ERJ-145, 170/175, ERJ-175, ERJ-135, EMB145-XR, Phenom 100, Phenom 300
  • Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-900, CRJ-200, CRJ-700
  • De Havilland Dash 8-400, 8-200, 8-100
  • ATR ATR-72
  • Aerospatiale ATR-42-300
  • Beechcraft Super King Air-200, 1900
  • SA-227DC Metro
  • Cessna Caravan, Cessna 402, Skyhawk, Citation Excel/XLC
  • Pilatus PC-12
  • Fokker 100
  • Sukhoi Superjet 100
  • Saab 340
  • Cirrus SR-22
  • BELL-AGUSTA AB-139
  • Fairchild Dornier

Who needs the fly tracker Flight Aware and why?

The radar system becomes more and more popular because it is created for the regular people of any age, profession, preferences or social status. If you meet or escort your friends, colleagues, partners, and relatives back you have the possibility to know for sure about the delays. You can follow your close people’s way to be calm watching their safe flight.

The flight tracker live map, the other website’s options, and products are of great value for fans and aviation enthusiasts. Due to this service, everybody is able to find out the details about his/her planned flight. The app is of great use for the commercial establishments as they use to contact foreign partners or the departments in other cities.

FlightAware is the best flight tracker for the entities working in the field of aviation. They are the aircraft companies, the divisions of corporate flights, charter flight operators, the aircraft and aviation engines manufacturers, the airport operators, and the state-owned enterprises. They always trust the Flight Aware Business Service Department the selection of software products and tools, the real-time transmission of data and the previous reports, the trend analyzes and data-processing, the engagement of contractors in the field of data processing, the searches of solutions for the future possible problems connected with the optimization and the increasing the reliability of the whole aviation.
FightAware map

The examples of the Flight Tracker use

FlightAware is the diverse service with plenty of options.

  • FlightAware TV product displays all the necessary information on the HDTV. It is very convenient in offices or the operation centers when some people need to watch the tracking or the weather forecast.
  • FBO ToolBox presents the latest and the newest tools for more perfect live flight tracking because the company develops the techs regularly in order to enable FBO staff seeing the fuller picture. For instant, the Past Visit tool allows finding out the number of departures or entries the plane has made for the last 3 months or year. There are primary options in this tool as well – the opportunity to see the fuel price analyzes or top destinations.
  • Custom Reports is the insight form more than 500,000,000 flight records. Everybody can order the customized report that meets his/her needs and get it in the CSV format that is opened with the most widespread applications as Excel.
  • APIs allow integrating the air tracker’s live flight data with the customers’ websites or apps. It offers a large number of codes in many programming languages.
  • FlightXML makes the FlightAware flight data available to the apps with the SOAP/WSDL and REST/JSON support. The list of information includes scheduled flights, data on departures and arrivals, and the information about the planes that are only on their way to the airport.
  • Firehose is the fully user-controllable service that allocates and scales the computing, web-based resources, and memory that are necessary for uploading and managing the streaming content. It uses the SSL encryption that protects the privacy of the applicants. It is also TCP-based that excludes the errors as the connections pass through.

The Flight Aware as the flight tracker 24/7 assistant – historical records and statistics

If you a guest and haven’t registered yet, you can get the flight records for the last two weeks. The historical reports include the information either on the definite tail or flight number or on the certain aircraft company’s fleet. The records also include:

  • Types of the boards for analyzing trends and finding out the peculiarities about the certain type.
  • Weather forecasts and observations, the wind directions and speed.
  • The information about flight hours and cycles of the specific board.
  • The specific features of the flight – altitude, speed, etc.
  • Data on the board’s owner and aircraft operator.
  • International reports with the information about the American, Asian flights, as well as the European ones.

FlightAware in 2005 office

However, you can get the past flight data free, but the airport history is paid. Note that it is possible to view the historical reports about special humanitarian flights as well. The archives and statistics for the last four months are available for the FlightAware registered users with the premium accounts.

Free and premium version – your opportunities

So, there are five packages for the flight tracking: Guest, Basic, Premium+, Enterprise, and Enterprise WX. You can use the service for free – track the flights via aircraft companies, cities, and countries. The maps with the weather index are also available, as well as the diagrams and the fuel prices. What is the difference between the service packages? Check our info circle on the right to get full information on each package. Just hover a necessary icon.

You can also get the partial statistics and use the mobile app. The paid accounts are for the single user or for several users — you can choose any of them. If you are a professional you need the premium account.

Try a monthly subscription and you’ll get the full information and the greater functionality. You can cancel it at any time on the website. However, those, who once experienced the right to full knowledge of the heaven traffic wouldn’t shrink from such a power.

Until you have no your own account, you are the Guest and can enjoy the free access only for two weeks.

After you’ve signed up, you are the owner of the Basic free package and are able to possess the information for 3 months.

Premium+ is valid for 5 months and gives the unlimited access to the flight alerts. It is compatible with your mobile app. You’ll be able to see all flight conditions, both favorable and negative.

The Enterprise user account allows using all the service’s functionality for the whole 8 months except such weather data as the worldwide icing, turbulence, etc.

Enterprise WX package gets the access for all options, it is valid for 8 months.

Video to use the service easily


There is the instructional video where you can see the step-by-step guide via screen demonstration. You’ll see how to use the search form and how to find out the necessary information just in some clicks. You see for yourself that FlightAware service is the most friendly and functional.