Flight Tracker

The formula

• altitude_ft = altitude_m × 3.28084
• speed_kmh = speed_ms × 3.6
• speed_knots = speed_ms × 1.94384
• refreshed every 45 seconds from the live feed

A worked example

Search "UAL123": position 41.7°N, 87.6°W; altitude 10,668 m (35,000 ft); speed 240 m/s (864 km/h); heading 90° (eastbound).

More about the Flight Tracker

What the map is really showing you

Type the flight number while the aircraft is airborne, UAL123 style, no spaces, and the tool plots its ADS B position on the map with altitude, speed and heading, refreshed roughly every 45 seconds. Treat it as the position from under a minute ago, not this exact second: plenty accurate for pickups and tight connections, but don't time a gate sprint to the second. If the feed drops or the flight isn't transmitting, the tool says so rather than inventing a position.

On disruption days, check the status about an hour before leaving for the airport, then again before heading to departures, rolling delays stack up, and spotting that your inbound aircraft is itself delayed tells you a cancellation is coming before the gate agent admits it. If a flight number returns nothing, it's usually not airborne yet or misspelled; try again once it's in the air.

Reading a live position and estimating the rest of the flight

Suppose the tracker shows an aircraft cruising at 780 kilometres per hour with about 390 kilometres still to run to its destination. The simple division, 390 ÷ 780, gives half an hour of flying at that speed. You can do the same estimate in reverse while waiting: if the map shows the aircraft 195 kilometres out and it is travelling at 780 kilometres per hour, roughly fifteen more minutes at cruising speed separate it from the point directly overhead of the destination area.

Treat that figure as the airborne estimate, not the arrival time on the airport board. The last part of every flight is slower than the first division suggests, because the aircraft descends, reduces speed, follows the approach pattern the controllers assign and then taxis after landing. A flight whose raw numbers say thirty minutes will usually park at the gate noticeably later, and the gap grows at busy airports where aircraft queue for both the runway and a free gate.

The heading figure refines the picture further. Heading is the compass direction the nose points, with 90 degrees meaning east and 180 degrees meaning south, and it will swing through the flight as the route bends between waypoints. A heading that briefly points away from the destination is not an error or an emergency: routes are chains of segments between navigation points, and the aircraft only needs each segment to make sense, not the whole line at every moment.

Codeshares, call signs and the same flight wearing two names

One physical aircraft can appear under several flight numbers at once, because airlines sell seats on each other’s services under codeshare agreements. The operating airline flies the plane under its own number, while each partner airline lists the identical departure in its own system under its own number. If a friend gives you a number that seems to belong to the wrong airline for the route, this is almost always why, and searching either number should lead to the same aircraft.

Air traffic control adds a third name: the call sign the crew and controllers use on the radio, which usually matches the operating airline’s flight number but in its spoken, letter based form. Registration numbers identify the individual aircraft itself, tail by tail, and stay with the plane across every route it flies. Flight number describes today’s service, call sign describes today’s radio identity, and registration describes the machine, three labels answering three different questions.

Knowing which label you hold prevents the commonest tracking failure. A booking confirmation shows the marketing number of whichever airline sold the ticket, which may be a codeshare partner rather than the operator. If a search under that number fails, try the operating airline’s version of the flight, which the departure airport’s own board usually displays alongside yours. The aircraft has not moved; only the name you are asking for it by was wrong.

When the tracker and the airline app seem to disagree

The two tools are answering different questions, so small disagreements between them are normal rather than alarming. The tracker reports where the aircraft physically is, derived from the position data it broadcasts. The airline app reports the airline’s operational story: scheduled and estimated departure and arrival times, gate information and boarding status, all of which are plans and forecasts that get revised as the day unfolds around weather, crew and congestion.

Use each source for what it measures best. If the tracker shows the incoming aircraft still an hour from landing, no optimistic estimate in the app can conjure it to your gate sooner, so plan a pickup around the aircraft’s real progress plus taxi and disembarking time. If the tracker shows the plane at your airport but the app insists the flight has not departed, believe both: the aircraft is most likely still on the ground, taxiing or waiting, because position alone never claimed it had taken off.

How to use the Flight Tracker

1. Enter the airline flight number, e.g. UAL123 (no spaces needed).
2. Wait a moment while the live feed is queried.
3. Read the position, altitude, speed and heading on the map.
4. Refresh for the latest position; data updates roughly every 45 seconds.