Live Flights API
Live aircraft arriving at, leaving or flying over any airport: one row per plane with callsign, route (origin to destination), airline, aircraft type, altitude, speed, distance and ETA. No API key, no login, no proxy: ADSB.lol open data (ODbL) + adsbdb routes.
Example request
curl -X POST https://radarbg.com/v1/live-flights-near-airport \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"mode": "airport", "airports": ["JFK", "LHR", "FRA"], "radiusNm": 30, "includeOnGround": true}'
Answer: {"ok": true, "count": N, "items": [...], "usage": {...}}. Failed calls are not counted.
Inputs
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
mode | string | airport = live aircraft within the radius of each airport, with arrival/departure/overflight and ETA; area = live aircraft around any latitude/longitude; flight = find specific aircraft by callsign, registration or ICAO hex code. |
airports | array | Airport mode: IATA (JFK, LHR, SOF) or ICAO (KJFK, EGLL, LBSF) codes, any country, up to 50. Empty = the example airports JFK, LHR and FRA. |
radiusNm | integer | Airport and area modes: how far around the airport or point to look (1-250 nm). 30 nm covers final approach and initial climb. |
directions | array | Airport mode filter. Any of: arrival, departure, overflight, likely arrival, likely departure, on ground, unknown. Empty = all aircraft. |
includeOnGround | boolean | Include aircraft that are taxiing or parked at the airport (they report 'ground' instead of an altitude). |
maxAltitudeFt | integer | Optional: skip airborne aircraft above this altitude, e.g. 15000 to drop high overflights. Empty = no limit. |
maxPerAirport | integer | Upper limit of rows per airport or point (1-1000). Rows are sorted: arrivals by ETA first, then departures, then the rest by distance. |
latitude | string | Area mode: center latitude in decimal degrees, e.g. 50.03. |
longitude | string | Area mode: center longitude in decimal degrees, e.g. 8.57. |
flights | array | Flight mode: ATC callsigns (BAW123, THY3UG), registrations (N123AB, TC-JVK) or ICAO 24-bit hex codes (4baacb). Up to 100. |
includeRoutes | boolean | Look up each callsign's route and airline (adsbdb.com) and mark the flight as arrival/departure/overflight. Off = positions only (faster). |
maxRouteLookups | integer | Upper limit of new callsign route lookups per run (0-1000). Routes are cached for 12 hours, so repeated runs are fast. |
onlyNew | boolean | Return only aircraft not returned in the last 6 hours by a run with the same Monitor ID. Schedule it every 5-15 minutes to get each new arrival or departure once. |
monitorId | string | Name of the saved state for Only new mode. Use a different ID for each watchlist. |
Price
Included in every plan: 100 calls a month free, then from €9 a month for 3,000 calls across all APIs.