Frequently Asked Questions

PlaneTrack.ai is a real-time aircraft tracking platform that displays live flight data from around the world. We collect ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) data from aircraft transponders and providers, and using real-time streaming augmentation, AI and re-analysis pattern matching, we provide almost 7 billion datapoints of flights, which we provide for free on this website.

We provide more capabilities for certain users/profiles, as well as API and linking in, for commercial, enterprise and developers. Our front end website is constantly evolving to provide more fun and engaging capabilities for the broadest set of people possible.

Modern aircraft are equipped with ADS-B transponders that broadcast their position, altitude, speed, and identification every second. If you have a receiver at home for ADS-B you can send us that data also, which is integrated real-time. We collect these also from around the world. Satellites can and do provide these (although we have not as yet integrated satellite sourced data).

We bring in all these sources, real-time, and add our own data analytics to provide more enrichment and predictive based information. Not every plane has ADS-B on, and it is not picked up in certain areas (yet), which is why we provide predictive. As we add increased coverage, this will only improve predictions, which is already extremely accurate (but still a prediction).

Not all aircraft are visible for several reasons:

• Some aircraft don't have ADS-B transponders (especially older or smaller aircraft)
• Military aircraft often disable or encrypt their transponders
• Some private aircraft operators request their data be filtered
• Coverage gaps exist in areas without ground receivers (remote areas, oceans)

Our data is streaming 24/7 and is available to our analytics, APIs and mapping, within 4 seconds (average of 2 seconds). We achieve this through leveraging streaming data platforms to perform large data movements and enrichment in transit. We store the data forever, which allows depth of analytics for users, companies, and developers, but also enriches our predictive and AI capabilities.

We do place restrictions on how we provide this to users. Our data latency depends on your subscription tier:

• Free: 15-minute delay
• Starter: 5-minute delay
• Professional & Enterprise: Real-time (typically 1-3 seconds)

Yes! You can email [email protected]. Our infrastructure and data management has been worked on for over 13 months to ensure resiliency, security, speed, and high range on ways to consume the data.

We are working on now, 2 areas: Rapidly increasing the sources of ADS-B real-time data to increase coverage, and increased analytics. We are also now beginning to work on increasing the functionality of the maps, mapping and API enrichment capabilities.

We know some of the fine tune logic in how the logic shows in the maps will not be 100% yet. We've spent an inordinate amount of time on the underlying data management, and felt we would all benefit from having this available to you all via the map, for rapid feedback and rapid enhancements. We will provide shortly enhancement boards but we are dropping enhancements to the map, every week.

No, you can view the live map without an account. However, creating a free account gives you access to additional features like saving favorite aircraft, setting alerts, and using the API.

The free tier includes:

• Access to the live map
• Aircraft search
• Basic aircraft information
• 100 API calls per day
• 15-minute delayed data

You can earn free Premium access by contributing to our network! If you have an ADS-B receiver and share your data with PlaneTrack.ai, you'll receive full Premium access. Visit our pricing page for more details.

Yes, you can cancel your subscription at any time from your dashboard. Your access will continue until the end of your current billing period. We don't offer prorated refunds for partial months.

1. Create an account at planetrack.ai/signup
2. Go to your dashboard
3. Click "Create New Key" in the API Keys section
4. Copy and securely store your API key

Note: API keys are only shown once at creation time.

Rate limits vary by tier:

• Free: 1 request/second, 100/day
• Starter: 10 requests/second, 10,000/day
• Professional: 100 requests/second, 100,000/day
• Enterprise: Unlimited

See our API documentation for more details.

Yes, commercial use is allowed on all paid tiers. The Free tier is limited to personal and non-commercial use. For large-scale commercial deployments, we recommend our Enterprise plan which includes dedicated support and custom SLAs. See our Commercial Use page for more information.

Yes, tracking aircraft using publicly broadcast ADS-B signals is legal in most countries. ADS-B signals are intentionally broadcast for safety purposes and are not encrypted. We comply with all applicable regulations and honor operator requests for data filtering.

We take privacy seriously. Your personal data is encrypted and never sold to third parties. We only collect what's necessary to provide our services. For full details, please read our Privacy Policy.

Yes, aircraft operators can request their aircraft be filtered from public display. Please contact us at [email protected] with proof of ownership/operation and your aircraft registration or ICAO hex code.