Flight Data: Best Flight Datasets & Databases

What is Flight Data?

Flight data is used to track the movements of aircraft across the world. Flight traffic datasets include both historical and real-time air traffic information, including take-off and landing times and delays, origin and destination records, and volume of air traffic at a given time period.

How is Flight Data collected?

Flight data providers collect flight information from a range of sources to compile flight datasets. First, web scraping tools can collect information from wesbites like Skyscanner and Experian, which are commerical flight comparison services. Skyscanner and Experian provide information about hundreds of flights acorss the world on a daily basis, so flight data proivders use these insights to collect data on where aeroplanes are flying from, to, and when. For data aside from commerical flights, flight data providers rely on updates from airports and air traffic control units to collect information about all types of planes: commercial, corporate and military. Airports and air traffic control units supply real-time updates about aircraft and flights based on automated (automatic dependant surveillance broadcasts) and manually-gathered signals. Lastly, aircraft manufacturers like Airbus release production statements which indicate flight frequency.

What are the attributes of Flight Data?

Flight datasets can be divided into several sub-categories based on the information they supply:
Commercial flight data - Commercial flight data tells a user about flights carried out by commmerical airline groups such as Delta, British Airways, or Emirates.
Corporate flight data - Corporate flight data tells a user about the journeys made by private jets owned by Russell 3000 businesses, private equity firms, hedge fund managers, venture capital firms, and other notable individuals.
Military flight data - Military flight data tells a user about aircraft commissioned by a country’s national military, including aeroplanes, jets, and helicopters.
Flight location - The position of an aircraft expressed in lat/long coordinates, and updated in real-time.
Airport code - Origin and destination airports expressed using their unique 3-letter IATA code.

What is Flight Data used for?

Production forecasting - Flight data is used for market research by aircraft manfacturers such as Airbus to plan for upcoming contracts. Likewise, national military and air forces use flight data to anticipate demand. This way, they can commission manufacturers to build new aircraft based on commercial industry output rates.
Sales forecasting - Businesses in the travel and hospitality industry use flight data to predict demand future levels based on historical and current flight information. Airlines like British Airways and flight comparison sites like Skyscanner can utilize their resources more effectively with a flight dataset to tell them how many customers will be using their services in future.
Air traffic management - Air traffic control units use flight traffic for flight path and route planning. Flight traffic data shows how many vessels are in the air at a given time, allowing on-the-ground control units to manage how these plans navigate around each other safely and efficiently.

How can a user assess the quality of Flight Data?

Flight data must be updated in real-time for it to represent the in-flight situation as it truly is. Flight data providers should compile their data feeds based on information constantly released from a range of sources on an automated basis. This way, there’s no danger of buying outdated and misleading flight data. Similarly, flight data should always come from a reputable source. This means that your flight data provider has affiliations with major airports, airlines and flight comparison sites. For your flight data to be instantly usable, it should follow the standard format approved by the Internation Air Transport Association.

Where can I buy Flight Data?

Data providers and vendors listed on Datarade sell Flight Data products and samples. Popular Flight Data products and datasets available on our platform are Global Flight Bookings & Arrivals | Flight Data by The Data Appeal Company, Bright Data | Travel Data - Global Coverage - Travel Industry Data from Hotel Websites & Flight Aggregators by Bright Data, and Aviation (Airlines) Datasets from Flight Aggregators | Grepsr by Grepsr.

How can I get Flight Data?

You can get Flight Data via a range of delivery methods - the right one for you depends on your use case. For example, historical Flight Data is usually available to download in bulk and delivered using an S3 bucket. On the other hand, if your use case is time-critical, you can buy real-time Flight Data APIs, feeds and streams to download the most up-to-date intelligence.

What are similar data types to Flight Data?

Flight Data is similar to Restaurant Data, Short-Term Rental Data, Hotel Rates & Pricing Data, Car Rental Data, and Tourist Attraction Data. These data categories are commonly used for Crew management and Flight Turbulence Mitigation.

What are the most common use cases for Flight Data?

The top use cases for Flight Data are Crew management, Flight Turbulence Mitigation, and Flight Tracking.