{"id":8389,"date":"2015-04-16T11:59:16","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T15:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=8389"},"modified":"2019-11-15T07:05:24","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T12:05:24","slug":"tracking-airplanes-how-flightradar24-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/tracking-airplanes-how-flightradar24-works\/8389\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracking airplanes: how Flightradar24 works"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many people are very anxious when it comes to flying, even if they are not the ones on board.<\/p>\n

\u201cCall me as soon as you land,\u201d my Mom instructs me every time I fly.<\/p>\n

And she gets pretty mad\u00a0if I fail to mention that I plan to fly in the first place. Since it happens a couple of times per week, alerting your Mom every single time would be ridiculous \u2013 but let\u2019s not tell my Mom that.<\/p>\n

For worried parents or confirmed aerophobs, Flightradar24<\/a> would be a great solution: This service lets you know what\u2019s happening to any particular aircraft.<\/p>\n

Lately, there\u2019ve been many flight-tracking services emerging on the Internet. However, most of them do have updatability problems. For U.S. airlines, the information may be up to date, but for other countries it is not always the case, and many airports or airlines might not be included into the system at all.<\/p>\n

What it boils down to is the source of the data. As a rule, the data to track the airplane is obtained from the airport website, which, kind of, undermines the entire idea. Who on Earth would need such services \u00a0if anyone can go to the airport\u2019s website and check the flight status on their own?<\/p>\n

Flightradar24 employs a different approach: It receives the flight data directly from the aircrafts.<\/div>\n

The main problem here is untimeliness of status updates (in some instances, this process is fully manual), as well as lack of transparency when it comes to what the aircraft is actually doing at a concrete moment of time.<\/p>\n

For example, the flight status can be \u2018Departed\u2019, but at the same time the said aircraft would still be on the ground, having been queued for the runway in the taxiway for 40 solid minutes.<\/p>\n

Flightradar24 employs a different approach: it receives the flight data directly from the aircrafts. This is possible thanks to Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast technology, or ADS-B, which is used by the majority of modern aircrafts.<\/p>\n

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2 @AirMalta<\/a> staff members were married and to celebrate an aircraft drew 2 hearts. #LoveFlight<\/a> http:\/\/t.co\/3VATfGaY3T<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ALtKxVpIBu<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) April 14, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n