Flightradar24 is a popular subscription-based global flight tracking service that provides real-time information on flights to both consumers and aviation professionals. With more than four million users daily, the service monitors and displays global flight paths, historical information on past flights, and aeronautical charts and aircraft details. When the company added aviation weather data as an overlay to its existing flight tracking data, it chose to work with Baron Weather.
Flightradar24 is used by most major airlines and other aviation companies, including Airbus, Boeing, KLM, Dublin Airport, and European budget carrier EasyJet. Based in Stockholm, the company offers subscription services for active flight tracking, historical flight data for businesses, and flight tracking platforms for airframe manufacturers.
The company offers the largest Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) network worldwide, using satellite signals and aircraft avionics systems to interpret aircraft data and broadcast it to air traffic controllers continuously and in almost real-time.
The Benefits of Baron Weather
Flightradar24 wanted to add an overlay of the weather data to its existing data based partly on customer requests to provide precipitation information. After researching numerous alternatives, Flightradar24 chose Baron. Baron’s API offered Flightradar24 an easy, efficient way to integrate high-quality aviation weather data, including radar, lightning, winds, and temps aloft.
Flightradar24 can display information like open/closed airspace, lightning (cloud to ground and cloud to cloud), tropical cyclone forecasts, precipitation rate forecasts, and surface wind forecasts, as well as temperature and wind speed forecasts at various altitudes, and even global volcanic eruptions.
Flightradar24 selected Baron after discovering Baron was the only company that could offer the Satellite-Derived Radar technology.
When weather events are out of range and coverage is essential, Satellite-Derived Radar makes tracking the formation and path of storms easier. Information about a significant weather event can be updated four times every hour.
“We wanted to use Satellite-Derived Radar data to show a heavy precipitation layer on our website and apps,” said Fredrik Lindahl, CEO of Flightradar24 AB.
The Air Up There
Ease of implementation also played an essential role in Flightradar24’s decision to select Baron.
“The flexibility and versatility of the Baron Weather API has made it very easy to implement the service into our website and apps. We use APIs to obtain data from Baron and contact Baron support via email when needed. The support team has always been very helpful and quick to respond.”
-- Fredrik Lindahl, CEO of Flightradar24 AB
He adds, “We are happy with the product. We have received positive feedback, especially on social media,” said Lindahl. He notes that the company is evaluating Baron’s historical archive API and is very excited about the opportunities to display this information for customers.
Aviation Weather Data to the Rescue
The flight-tracking image with the Baron Satellite Radar integrated into the mapping display was a striking visual image used in several news stories about how a commercial airline flight was able to land in San Juan, Puerto Rico, ahead of Hurricane Irma and then take off again, as one of the last flights to do so.
Flightradar24 later issued a social media post on Twitter about the first commercial flight to fly south over Florida after the hurricane passed, showing the weather overlay information that indicated it was safe to do so.
This type of weather data provided by Baron is helping Flightradar24 deliver a high level of information to its customers – improving overall situational awareness. Flightradar24 CEO Lindahl concludes, “We are very happy with the availability of the products – we have never experienced any serious outages or downtime, which is very positive for us.”
