CEO Fredrik Lindahl tells us at first Flightradar24 was just a hobby project. Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg bought ADS-B receivers/antennas (surveillance devices for tracking aircraft) and put them up on their houses in the Stockholm area for their own enjoyment.
“The site started attracting a lot of visitors and more and more people around Europe with ADS-B equipment volunteered to feed. Things really took off due to extensive media coverage around the time for the Icelandic ash cloud,” says Lindahl.
Today they have over 1000+ ADS-B devices feeding data into Flightradar24, of which 90% are owned by hobbyists. In the U.S., Flightradar24 is able to grab data from the FAA with a five minute delay, giving them complete coverage of the US and Canada.
The entire operation has been self-financed from advertisements on the web version, and from downloads of their mobile and desktop apps. Their website gets more than 4 million unique visitors a month, and have more than 3 million apps downloaded.
Their apps are available for purchase on iOS and Android devices, as well as a desktop app for Mac. In addition to flight search and the live map, they also offer an Augmented Reality function that lets you point your phone at a plane, and it will show you details on what flight it is, where it’s going, and so on.
Lindahl points out there have been potential consequences to open flight tracking – this headline from the Kuala Lumpur Post says it all: Flight Radar 24 Exposed Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s ‘Private Trip’ To Milan – “Aeronautical Evidence”
Right now our whole office is having a good time messing with the service, so it’s not a bad way to kill a few minutes on a Friday. Check it out what’s above the Nordics and Baltics here.
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