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Flightradar24 Live Tracker — Real-Time Aircraft Positions API

Pull real-time positions of every commercial and private aircraft in the air worldwide. Bbox-based queries, airport search, VIP/celebrity jet tracking by tail number. PPE pricing, AI-agent native, no Playwright/proxy/captcha gymnastics — built directly on Flightradar24's mobile-app data feed.

For implementation notes, examples, and live aviation data workflows, see the Flightradar24 Live Tracker guide on Konabayev.com.

👁 Flightradar24 Live Tracker input and output example
👁 Live aircraft position dataset preview

What it does

Three modes covering the most common live-aviation use cases:

1. bbox — get every aircraft inside a lat/lon bounding box (or convenience preset like nyc, europe, russia, tokyo).
2. airports — search for airports/airlines/aircraft by IATA code or name. Returns the matching entities with metadata.
3. registrations — track specific tail numbers worldwide (e.g., N628TS for Elon Musk's Gulfstream, RA-96021 for Putin's IL-96).

Each flight returns a structured record: position (lat/lon/altitude/speed/heading), identity (registration/callsign/aircraft type/airline IATA), itinerary (origin/destination/flight number), and a Flightradar map link.

Why this actor

There is no equivalent on the Apify Store today. Closest paid alternatives:

For agents that occasionally need aviation data, our PPE model is dramatically cheaper than monthly subscriptions.

Input examples

Live flights over New York

{
"mode":"bbox",
"preset":"nyc",
"maxItems":100
}

Compare US east-coast vs Europe traffic

{
"mode":"bbox",
"bboxes":["50,24,-130,-65","72,35,-12,40"],
"maxItems":500,
"includeOnGround":false
}

Track specific VIP/celebrity jets

{
"mode":"registrations",
"registrations":["N628TS","M-YBLU","T7-LXG"],
"maxItems":20
}

Search airports by code

{
"mode":"airports",
"airports":["JFK","LHR","SVO","NRT"]
}

Filter Russia airspace by airline

{
"mode":"bbox",
"preset":"russia",
"onlyAirlineIatas":["SU","S7","U6"],
"maxItems":200
}

Output

{
"id":"3f8d7b02",
"icao24":"A7DC99",
"lat":40.533,
"lon":-74.956,
"heading":200,
"altitude":4700,
"speed":44,
"squawk":"1200",
"aircraft_type":"P28A",
"registration":"N6053F",
"timestamp":1778006362,
"origin":"MMU",
"destination":"FRG",
"flight":"",
"callsign":"N6053F",
"vertical_rate":-192,
"airline_iata":"",
"onGround":false,
"mapUrl":"https://www.flightradar24.com/N6053F"
}

Use cases

• VIP jet tracking — journalists tracking oligarch / politician movements (open-source intelligence)
• Travel-app ETA prediction — cross-reference scheduled vs actual arrival times
• AI agents — give your assistant "where is flight UA42?" and "is JFK busy?" capabilities
• Logistics dashboards — cargo aircraft routing visualization
• Aviation research — flight emissions, route optimization, fleet utilization
• Drone safety apps — ground-airspace conflict awareness
• News/incident detection — diversions, emergency squawks (7500/7600/7700)

Programmatic usage

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("tugelbay/flightradar-live-tracker").call(run_input={
"mode":"registrations",
"registrations":["N628TS"],
})
for flight in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
if flight.get("registration")=="N628TS":
print(f"Elon's plane is at {flight['lat']},{flight['lon']} alt={flight['altitude']}ft")

LangChain tool

from langchain_core.tools import tool
@tool
deffind_flight(callsign_or_registration:str)->dict|None:
"""Locate a specific aircraft worldwide right now."""
from apify_client import ApifyClient
 client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
 run = client.actor("tugelbay/flightradar-live-tracker").call(run_input={
"mode":"registrations",
"registrations":[callsign_or_registration.upper()],
"maxItems":5,
})
 items =list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())
return items[0]if items elseNone

Pricing (PPE)

A typical 100-flight bbox query: $0.01 + 100×$0.005 = $0.51 per run.

FAQ

Q: Is this legal? A: We use Flightradar24's public data feed, the same one their iOS/Android/Web apps consume. No login required. Standard web-scraping rules apply — check Flightradar24's ToS for your specific use case if commercial.

Q: How fresh is the data? A: Real-time — positions are updated within ~5-30 seconds depending on aircraft transponder type (ADS-B / MLAT / FLARM).

Q: Coverage? A: Worldwide. Coverage is excellent over land in developed countries; sparse over open ocean. Flightradar combines ADS-B receivers, MLAT triangulation, and satellite ADS-B.

Q: What's the max bbox size? A: Whole-world bbox returns ~18-20K concurrent flights. Pricing × 18K = $90 — use bbox subdivision if you only need a region.

Q: Can I run this on a schedule? A: Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run every minute / 5 min / hour and pipe to your database for historical position tracking.

Q: Does it follow a specific aircraft? A: For live position only, yes (mode=registrations). For historical track of one aircraft over time, build a schedule that runs every N minutes and accumulate records.

Limitations

• Position-only: this actor returns the current position snapshot. Historical track-replay of past flights requires Flightradar24's enterprise API (we may add v0.2 if there's demand).
• Bbox-bound: large queries cost more (priced per flight returned). Scope your bbox to the region you actually care about.
• Some private operators opt out via FAA's LADD/PIA programs — those flights won't appear.

Changelog

• 0.1.0 (2026-05-05): Initial release — bbox, airports, registrations modes; presets for major regions; airline/on-ground filters.