Live Flights
Worldwide aircraft radar, updating liveWhat's Happening Right Now
11,896 aircraft are in the air right now, spread across 583 airports in 123 countries. Click any aircraft on the map to open live telemetry, route arc, and an altitude profile.
Pick any airport from the sidebarfrom the list below to jump into its local radar, airline mix, aircraft types, and scheduled board. Or use the flight tracker below to open a single flight by number.
Busiest Airports Right Now
Ranked by live aircraft count in each airport's radar. Counts come from the global ADS-B receiver network and refresh every few seconds. They include approaches, departures, and overflights inside roughly 15 nautical miles, so a big hub running wave arrivals will briefly lead even airports with higher daily totals.
| # | Airport | Aircraft |
|---|---|---|
Track a Flight
Know the flight number? Type the airline code and number (AA 100, EK 201, UA 1) to jump straight to live position, altitude profile, route arc, and on-time history. Works for anything broadcasting: scheduled, charter, ferry, or a one-off.
How Flight Tracking Works
Every commercial aircraft broadcasts its position via ADS-B. The transponder sends GPS coordinates, altitude, velocity, and identification a few times per second on 1090 MHz. The global ADS-B receiver network, tens of thousands of ground stations crowdsourced and operated by enthusiasts and aviation authorities, picks up those signals within line-of-sight and aggregates them.
Coverage is near-complete over land in North America, Europe, and most of Asia. Over oceans, polar routes, and some mountainous regions, ground-based reception thins out. Satellite-based ADS-B fills part of that gap for equipped aircraft, but not all of it. You'll see flights disappear and reappear on long transoceanic tracks.
What you see reflects the live state of global aviation. Position updates every 5 to 10 seconds. Altitude, speed, heading, and squawk all come straight from the aircraft itself, relayed through the ADS-B community.
Frequently Asked Questions
Aircraft positions refresh every few seconds. ADS-B is GPS-accurate and broadcast directly from the aircraft, so what you see is within about 30 meters of where it actually is. We pull from the global community-operated ADS-B receiver network.
Anything broadcasting ADS-B: commercial airlines, cargo, business jets, general aviation, military, and helicopters. If the transponder is on and a community-operated ADS-B receiver is within line-of-sight, the aircraft appears. Coverage is near-complete over land in North America, Europe, and most of Asia; thinner over oceans and remote regions.
Yes. Use the Track a Flight form with an airline code and number (AA 100, EK 201, UA 1) to jump to a single-flight view with route arc, altitude profile, and live telemetry. You can also click any aircraft on the map.
Emergency pills flag squawk 7500 (hijack), 7600 (comm failure), or 7700 (general emergency). Military flags are pulled from the aircraft database by registration. Neither is common, which is why we surface them.
Altitude. Red at ground level, through green, teal, and blue for mid-altitudes, into violet above 40,000 feet. Scan the map and you can tell who is climbing out, cruising, and letting down.
Coverage gaps. ADS-B depends on line-of-sight reception from ground stations, so aircraft over oceans, polar routes, or certain mountainous regions drop off the map for stretches. Satellite-based receivers fill some of it in for equipped aircraft.
GPS-accurate via ADS-B, typically within 30 meters horizontally. The display updates every 5 to 10 seconds. When a signal drops, the marker holds the last-known position rather than disappearing, and the label reflects the staleness.