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.

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:

Source	Pricing	Notes
Flightradar24 Business API	$200-2000+/mo (enterprise tiers)	Full features but pricey, contract-only
ADSBexchange	$19.95/mo	Raw ADS-B feeds only, no airline/route enrichment
aviationstack	$29-499/mo	Slow, rate-limited
OpenSky Network	free (academic)	ADS-B only, sparse coverage
This actor	PPE, $0.005/flight	Pay only for results you actually use, AI-agent native

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
def find_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 else None

Pricing (PPE)

Event	Price	Note
Actor start	$0.005	One-time per run
Live flight record	$0.005	Per aircraft returned

A typical 100-flight bbox query: $0.005 + 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.