OpenSky Flight Scraper

OpenSky Flight Scraper

Scrape live aircraft states and flight history from OpenSky Network, up to a million flights per run. Every flight comes with its callsign, position, altitude, velocity, heading, and origin country. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

OpenSky's official API limits anonymous users to 400 credits per day and needs a registered account for more. This Actor reads the public live and historical endpoints directly, filtered by bounding box, airport, or time window, and returns each flight in one fixed schema.

Who uses it	What they scrape OpenSky Network for
Aviation analysts	Monitor air traffic density over a region in real time
Flight tracking apps	Feed live aircraft positions into a map or dashboard
Airport operators	Analyze arrival and departure patterns at a specific airport
Researchers	Study historical flight trajectories for academic work

What it does

This Actor collects live aircraft states, airport arrivals, airport departures, or all flights in a time interval from OpenSky Network, and returns each flight as a flat row.

• 🛰️ Live States: current snapshot of all aircraft airborne, optionally filtered by a bounding box.
• 🛬 Airport Arrivals: planes that landed at a given ICAO airport within a time window.
• 🛫 Airport Departures: planes that took off from a given ICAO airport within a time window.
• 🕒 All Flights in Interval: every flight in a time interval, up to 2 hours.
• 🔑 Optional OpenSky account: pass a username and password to raise rate limits.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with OpenSky Network data

📡 Monitor live air traffic over a region.

An aviation analyst sets a bounding box over the Alps and runs the Actor every minute to see which aircraft are airborne right now.

🛬 Track arrivals at a major airport.

An airport operator enters EDDF and a 24-hour window to get every landing at Frankfurt for delay analysis.

🛫 Analyze departure patterns.

A researcher pulls a week of departures from KJFK to study taxi-out times and runway usage.

🕒 Reconstruct historical flights.

A flight tracking app queries a 2-hour interval to rebuild the path of a specific aircraft for a user.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Works with the public OpenSky endpoints, no registration needed
Four modes	Live states, arrivals, departures, or all flights in an interval
Flat output	One row per flight with callsign, position, altitude, velocity, heading
Optional login	Use a free OpenSky account for higher rate limits

How it compares

This Actor covers the same OpenSky endpoints as the two direct competitors below, with the added option to use an OpenSky account for higher rate limits.

Feature	ParseForge	OpenSky Flight Scraper - Live Aircraft & ADS-B Data	Live Flight Tracker (OpenSky)
Live aircraft states	Yes	Yes	Yes
Airport arrivals and departures	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
All flights in a time interval	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Bounding box filter	Yes	Not listed	Yes
Optional OpenSky account for higher rate limits	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
No API key required	Yes	Yes	Yes

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a bounding box, an airport ICAO code, or a time window, alone or together, and filters run as each flight is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "mode": "liveStates",
 "airportIcao": "EDDF"
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "mode": "liveStates",
 "airportIcao": "EDDF"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01199 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.20
1,000 results	$11.99
10,000 results	$119.90

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the OpenSky Flight Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to OpenSky Network through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/opensky-flights-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your filters. For Live States, make sure your bounding box coordinates are correct and cover an area with air traffic. For airport modes, verify the ICAO code and that your time window is in the past and within the allowed span.

Why did the run fail with a rate limit error?

OpenSky limits anonymous requests to 400 credits per day. If you hit the limit, wait until it resets or provide a free OpenSky account username and password in the input to get 1000 credits per day.

Why is my time window rejected?

For airport modes, the maximum span is 7 days. For the Flights mode, it is 2 hours. Also ensure your begin timestamp is before the end timestamp and both are in the past.

Why do I get fewer flights than expected?

OpenSky's data depends on volunteer receivers, so coverage is not complete everywhere. Some flights may be missing, especially in remote areas. Also check that your filters are not too restrictive.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need an OpenSky account?	No. The Actor works with the public OpenSky endpoints without any login. If you have a free OpenSky account, you can pass your username and password to get higher rate limits.
What is the difference between Live States and All Flights in Interval?	Live States returns a snapshot of all aircraft currently airborne, optionally filtered by a bounding box. All Flights in Interval returns every flight that was active in a given time window, up to 2 hours long.
How do I filter by airport?	Use the Airport Arrivals or Airport Departures mode and enter the 4-letter ICAO code, like EDDF for Frankfurt or KJFK for JFK. You also need to set a begin and end Unix timestamp.
What is a bounding box?	A bounding box is a rectangular area defined by minimum and maximum latitude and longitude. In Live States mode, you can set these four values to only get aircraft inside that area.
What time format do I use for begin and end?	Unix timestamps in seconds since epoch. For example, 1700000000 is November 14, 2023. The maximum span is 7 days for airport modes and 2 hours for the Flights mode.
Can I get more than 1 million flights?	The maximum per run is 1,000,000 flights. If you need more, split your query into smaller time windows or bounding boxes and run the Actor multiple times.
What data does each flight row contain?	Each row includes the ICAO 24-bit address, callsign, origin country, time of last contact, position (latitude and longitude), barometric altitude, velocity, heading, and vertical rate.
Is the data real-time?	Live States mode returns the current snapshot from OpenSky, which is updated every few seconds. Historical modes return data as recorded by OpenSky's network of receivers.
Can I export the results?	Yes. The Actor outputs a dataset that you can export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
What is the rate limit without an account?	OpenSky allows anonymous users 400 credits per day. Each API call costs credits, so a single run may use several credits. With a free account, you get 1000 credits per day.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by OpenSky Network. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.