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  • Fewer flights than expected displayed

    I've suspected for some time now that I'm seeing only a fraction of the flights that should be visible. I have a silver subscription and all my settings are at default.

    A couple of days ago, someone in a technical forum posted a link to an online article about how eastbound flights on the northern transatlantic route take advantage of the jetstream to boost their ground speed. The FR24 screenshot in the article showed many times the number of aircraft I could see the next day at about the same time of day.

    I've just had a look at the route again and the display shows many more westbound flights than I usually see but very few eastbound traffic - fewer, in fact, than I normally see.

    Is this normal? If not, what could be the reason? Here's a screenshot of what I got about half an hour ago (around 1:27 pm UTC):

    Screenshot 1857 hrs IST.jpg

  • #2
    Hey Pimpom! We don't think thereĦs anything wrong with the number of flights you see on screen, and we are looking at something similar right now (image attached). Please note that our website will limit the number of aircraft you see simultaneously to avoid a drastic drop in performance or crashes (normally there'll be a cap on 1500 aircraft on screen).

    If you saw a screenshot in an article from Flightradar24, it could be an image from a time-lapse or a picture that specifically showed more aircraft than usual, if you send an email to support@fr24.com with more information about the article we can have a look!
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    • #3
      Thanks for the reply. That clarifies the situation at least partially. But how does FR24 pick which flights are displayed and which are not? For instance, right now the number of aircraft shown is heavily biased towards westbound flights. If I wanted to track the flight of a relative who's on an eastbound transatlantic flight now, am I simply out of luck?

      The transatlantic route is just an example. Closer to where I live (eastern edge of India) where the route is much less busy, I often can't see the flights I expect to. Anyway, here's the link to the article. The FR24 screenshot is roughly midway down the page. https://www.wired.com/story/norwegia...-speed-record/

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      • #4
        Thanks for the link! In this case please note that there is a difference for how many aircraft are flying at any one point, based on the time of the day. While 1:30 UTC is a busy time for Europe for example or westbound flights, it may not so much for eastbound flights (the image in the article is for 04:00 UTC). You can use the General Playback tool on the right hand side of the screen to see different dates and times, try Jan 17th at 04:00 UTC (we have added an image here too).

        Regarding what flights we display, please note this is only cosmetic, and the data exists in our database. If you want to see a specific flight and you search by Flight number for example, if it's live we'll display it on screen, and data will be visible on the left side menu as always. We hide only icons on screen in the general map to improve performance but that doesn't mean the data is not available!
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        • #5
          Thanks again for the clarification.

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