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Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who is the OpenSky Network?
The OpenSky Network was initiated in 2012 by researchers from armasuisse Science + Technology
(Switzerland),
University of Kaiserslautern (Germany),
and University of Oxford (UK). The objective was
(and still is!) to provide high quality air traffic data to researchers. By 2015, the
OpenSky Network transitioned into a non-profit association based in Switzerland. OpenSky has
taken part in Horizon grants and is supported by a number of volunteers from industry
government and academia. Researchers from different areas are using the data that is
provided by people from all around the world.
2. How can I get access to OpenSky's data?
Due to limited resources, our association's policy is to grant free access to
our full data set only to research institutions, aviation authorities, and governmental
organizations. Registered non-profit organizations may be granted access on a case-by-case basis. This does typically not include
personal learning and research purposes by private individuals, instead we have made many datasets
available for such use cases. Commercial entities and continued operational users must contact us for a license, no matter the intended use case.
We further preserve the right to control this access and in particular, to refuse access if
we think the application is for example not ethical. You can apply for access here by giving
us a brief description of how you will use the data and what data you need. If you are from
an eligible institution, please use an affiliated email address! Please note that in any
case, you need an account for our platform to get access to the data. Access to the full
dataset is currently only supported via a Trino interface and can be used to calculate
statistics or perform direct searches with small result sets. Beyond this, we release many
pre-curated datasets, see our dataset page.
3. Which data can OpenSky provide?
The OpenSky network collects raw air traffic control communication. We monitor the 1090
MHz
SSR Mode S downlink channel, including ADS-B, and also collect FLARM and ADS-C data and have collected VHF/Voice for the ATCO2 project.
This
means that we can provide on the one hand low-level data (down to single transponder
transmissions) and on the other hand high-level tracking data of the form "at date
and
time
T, aircraft A was at position X and altitude Y and moved into direction D at a speed
of
V".
Furthermore, we derive origin and destination of a flight from this track data where
possible. The process is described in this
paper. While we have began to integrate some
route information into the live view of the OpenSky Explorer, we do not currently map
this
to commercial flight schedules. This means that we cannot give any information on,
for
example, scheduled flights, cancellations, delays, flight numbers, or passenger
counts!
While more information may be inferred by combining our data with other data sources,
this
is beyond the scope of our services. For crowdsourced aircraft metadata, you can use our
aircraft database.
Generally, we don't have any data at all from before 2013 and have the best coverage in
Europe and the US. Regarding our day-to-day coverage, you can check it on our Network Coverage page.
4. Where do we get our data from?
The most important technology which is used by the OpenSky Network is the Automatic
Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B). The ADS-B allows airplanes to determine
their position and
velocity using GPS. Airplanes then periodically broadcast this and other information on the
1090 MHz radio frequency. To obtain this valuable information at a large scale, we operate a
network of ADS-B receivers around the globe and harvest the data via the Internet. Our
receivers are sponsored or hosted by private people, industrial partners, and
academic/governmental organizations. If you would like to support the project by becoming a
contributor or receiver host, please refer to this page.
5. I want coverage in my area! What can I do?
The first thing you need is an ADS-B receiver. At the moment, we support the following
devices: Radarcape and
dump1090-based
receivers (mutability
and antirez forks) plus FLARM /
OGN. Please refer to this page for more information. Ideally, you have access to a location with power
supply, permanent Internet connection, a good line of sight in all directions.
for more
information.
6. What will happen with the data I stream to OpenSky?
We store all the data which is received by your receiver on our servers. The data includes
reception timestamps, the position of the receiver, and the raw ADS-B message. We use this
data to generate live views and calculate statistics. In addition, we share the data with
researchers, and other networks. For examples on how they use they use the data, see the
list of publications.
Please note: if you do not tick the Anonymize-box when adding the receiver to your profile, the receiver's location will appear in the raw
shared data. For more details, please check out the datasets on our webpage and have a
look at our Terms of Use. If you have a
different receiver device (e.g. ASTERIX, ADS-C) or your organization wants
to share any other data with us, please contact us and we can work on a solution with you.
7. Is there a live API? Can I use it for my application?
Yes there is! You can find it here: OpenSky API Documentation.
We have language bindings for Python and Java but there are many more provided by the community (and potentially more maintained). The API also supports retrieving
historical data (within some limits though!). You can freely use the API for personal and
non-profit applications but any commercial use requires our consent. Such commercial use
includes, but is not limited to, selling applications using the API, advertisements on a web
page/application using the API, and also internal use by any commercial for-profit entity
that goes beyond testing and evaulating the quality of the data. If you have any problems,
questions, bug reports, or ideas regarding the API, please use our Discord server and let us know.
8. I used OpenSky data for my research. Can I publish the results?
Absolutely! We are happy to see and share the value of our Network. Please note that if you
used our data, you must credit us by referencing us as the data source according to our
Terms of Use. Also, in case you
published your results in form of a scientific publication,
we would like to add it to our publications list.
9. I have been granted access. Can I share the data with my colleagues?
Yes you can, as long as your colleagues work in the same organization and only assist you
with working on the project you mentioned in your application for the data. In case your
colleagues want to use the data for a different project or organization, they also have to
apply for the data (see "How can I get access to OpenSky's data?"). Please refer to our
Terms of Use for more information. If
your case remains unclear, we are happy to answer
additional questions via email or on our Discord server.
10. Can I use graphs and information from OpenSky for my publications, talks, or website?
Yes! Sharing is caring and the OpenSky Network's philosophy is to give back as much as
possible to the world. If you use any information of the OpenSky network, we would highly
appreciate being credited with providing the information.
11. The uptime of my receiver never exceeds 24h! Why?
This can have many reasons. One common cause is that most Internet providers reset
connections once during the night. This results in a short disruption of the receiver's
connection to our servers. However, this distruption should not last longer than a couple of
minutes. In case you observe longer outages, please contact us and we will help you to
identify and resolve the problem.
12. My receiver is shown as offline even though it is definitely online! Why??
If your receiver is up and running, this display can have several reasons. There could be
connection issues for example. However, most likely there are simply no aircraft in range of
the receiver at that point in time. If there are no aircraft messages send to OpenSky for an
extended period of time, this receiver is then also shown as "offline".
13. Where do the long spikes in the range of my receiver come from?
Some airplanes transmit false or erroneous positions. Since we rely on the airplanes
position reports for determining the range of a receiver, such erroneous position reports
can result in wrong measurements for certain directions. The result is spikes in the ranges.
Although we perform a lot filtering and reasonableness tests already, some of the bad
position reports pass anyway.
14. When/how do you get origin/destination airports for flights? Why are there no flights
for today?
We infer flights for both our Rest API and our Trino database in a nightly batch
procedure
from the ADS-B tracks collected for the finished day (UTC). For some more information on
how
they are derived, you can refer to this publication.
This also means that we only have historical flight data for previous days, no live
flight information
and no commercial data about schedules, delays or cancellations etc (definitely no
passenger
numbers!).
15. An airport is missing on your webpage! How do I add them?
We source our airports from the open source option ourairports.com. If your airport is not
in the downloadable CSV or has an issue such as incorrect data, we might not be able to add
them. We suggest you add it on their webpage and let us know about it on our Discord server.
16. An aircraft's details are incorrect or missing, how can I fix this?
We source our aircraft details such as transponder ID, registration, type or owner from external crowdsourced data. We do not currently maintain our own database.
17. I need more API requests/credits per day. How do I get them?
The OpenSky REST API is provided "as is". We may change access policies or apply rate limits as needed to protect system performance.
To use the API, authenticate via the OAuth2 client credentials flow (recommended for all programmatic access):
Log in to your OpenSky account and create an API client to get your client_id and client_secret.
Use these credentials to obtain an access token:
export CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
export CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret
export TOKEN=$(curl -X POST "https://auth.opensky-network.org/auth/realms/opensky-network/protocol/openid-connect/token" \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
-d "grant_type=client_credentials" \
-d "client_id=$CLIENT_ID" \
-d "client_secret=$CLIENT_SECRET" | jq -r .access_token)
Include the token in your API requests:
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" https://opensky-network.org/api/states/all
Rate limits and API credits
Rate limits currently apply to:
/states/all, /flights/*, and /tracks/all.
🔥 For full details, please refer to the
official API documentation.
Special access for institutional researchers
Institutional (typically academic) researchers can request unlimited API access, including historical data. For non-profit causes with significant impact, please create an account and raise a data request. Note that we get too many requests to reply to data requests for personal and individual use cases. You can use our REST API within the provided limits or explore our public datasets for educational use.
18. Why can't find an aircraft on the map that should be there?
If you think an aircraft should be there but isn't, there are two main reasons. a) It might
be outside our coverage (too low, no sensor close by). b) It might not support ADS-B or
FLARM but only Mode S, which does not provide a position but only the altitude. In this
case, it should show up in the search box but naturally can't be displayed
on the map. As we currently do not offer multilateration (MLAT), this affects also some
military planes. Please note that those military planes that *really* do not want to be
tracked will switch their entire transponders off. Either way, they are not being filtered.
19. I have an account — what credentials do I use for each interface?
OpenSky has separate interfaces that use different credentials and you need to pay attention that you use the correct ones for each:
Interface
What to use
Where to find it
REST API
API Client (client_id + client_secret) via OAuth2
Account page → API Client card; see API docs
Trino (historical database)
Your website username + password (standard login)
Trino page;  your username is shown on the Account page
Feeder / receiver setup
Your website username — not the API client ID
Feeder setup page; your username is shown on the Account page
A common source of confusion: the API client ID ends in -api-client and is only for the REST API. Do not enter it into your feeder software — use your plain username instead. Similarly, the API client has no relation to Trino access; Trino access is granted separately by the administrators.
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