Dataset

ADS-B air-traffic data

Live ADS-B transponder broadcasts picked up by a community-operated sensor network covering aircraft worldwide, open to free historical access for research, a practical proxy for flight activity, tourism and corporate-jet movements.

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Dataset card

OpenSky Network publishes ADS-B air-traffic data collected from a global network of community-operated receivers. It exposes historical and near-real-time flight positions for commercial aircraft, private jets and other ADS-B-equipped vehicles.

What this dataset contains

The feed captures state vectors broadcast by aircraft transponders, covering position, altitude, heading and timestamp for most equipped flights worldwide. Coverage is global but uneven, with denser reception over Europe, North America and other regions hosting many contributor receivers. Both commercial airline movements and corporate or general aviation flights are represented, as reflected in the dataset tags.

Structure and fields

OpenSky's documented state-vector fields typically include icao24 (unique transponder identifier), callsign, origin_country, time_position, last_contact, longitude, latitude, baro_altitude, on_ground, velocity, heading, vertical_rate and squawk. Higher-level historical archives add derived columns such as arrival airport, departure airport and flight duration. The exact schema for any individual snapshot is not specified in the supplied record.

How analysts use it

Researchers and aviation analysts use the feed to study traffic congestion, route changes and airport throughput over time. For alternative-data purposes, observers monitor corporate-jet movements near small airports as a potential signal on private-company travel, though OpenSky restricts use to non-commercial research terms. Logistics teams also cross-reference cargo and charter flights against schedule disruptions.

Documentation & references 2