Is flight tracking the new Netflix?
Hundreds of thousands follow flights of the famous but privacy concerns have led to backlash
Flight tracking has been described as the “sleeper hit of the summer” and a chance to “participate in history in real time” as the hobby’s popularity continues to soar.
Whether it’s following the flights of politicians such as Nancy Pelosi and Alexei Navalny, or pop stars such as Taylor Swift, millions are now “tuning in to watch little yellow plane icons move across a map of the world”, said The Guardian.
Pelosi and Aubameyang
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial flight to Taiwan was the single most tracked flight of all time, according to the online tracking site Flightradar24.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The website said that more than 708,000 people were tracking the flight when it landed in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, and more than 2.9 million people had tracked at least a portion of the flight.
In a blog post, Flightradar24, which was started as a passion project by two aviation enthusiasts, said that traffic on its website became so heavy that it nearly brought down the tracker, which uses a network of receivers to pin down planes’ location and speed.
Around 550,000 viewers tracked the flight of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as he returned to Moscow last year to face imprisonment, reported Yahoo Finance. A US air force Global Hawk, travelling around Ukraine during the Russian invasion, was also heavily followed.
Flight tracking has also become a popular tool for football fans who want to follow the movements of star players during transfer windows. For instance, SportBible reported in 2018 that around 32,000 Arsenal fans tracked Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s private flight from Dortmund to London, ahead of the striker’s move to the Gunners.
“We see the most interest during the European football transfer window,” Ian Petchenik, head of communications for Flightradar24, told The Guardian.
“The teams have very dedicated fanbases. They will figure out what flight their favourite player is on, and they will follow that flight.”
Swift’s air miles
The trend has led to some celebrities being criticised for the impact their flights have on the environment. Earlier this month a survey found that Taylor Swift’s private jet has taken 170 flights between 1 January and 29 July 2022, clocking up 15.9 days in the air with an average flight time of just 80 minutes and 139.36 miles per flight.
The sustainability marketing firm Yard claimed that Taylor’s total flight emissions for 2022 were calculated at 8,293.54 tonnes – 1,184.8 times more than the average person’s total annual emissions. However, a spokesperson for the pop star dismissed reports that she is the celebrity with the highest private jet emissions as “blatantly incorrect”, said The Times.
Nevertheless, the Celebrity Jets Twitter account automatically tracks certain aircraft, leading to other celebrities such as Drake, Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner facing criticism for taking “strikingly short flights” at a time of “profound climate crisis”, said The Guardian.
The backlash begins
This sort of attention has led one celebrity to put his foot down. Elon Musk offered a teenager $5,000 to stop tracking his private jet flights on the Twitter account @ElonJet, reported Forbes. Jack Sweeney asked for the sum to be increased to $50,000, after which Musk “ghosted him”.
The 19-year-old has since declared that he’s “pretty confident” he is also able to track the whereabouts of Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg’s private jet, reported Inquirer.
Aviation privacy may be revamped in response to these sorts of accounts, reported The Independent. Although the Federal Aviation Administration allows some planes to shield their identity from the public on government data streams, open-source sites can still capture public aircraft transponder data.
“Flight-stalking” of figures such as Musk and Zuckerberg “underscores the need to ensure that people aren’t required to surrender their personal security and safety just because they get on an airplane”, Dan Hubbard, spokesperson for the National Business Aviation Association, told Forbes.
Flight tracking “irks tycoons and baddies”, said The Jordan Times. It added that Chinese state media reported in 2021 that the government had confiscated hundreds of receivers used in crowd-sourced flight tracking, citing the risk of “espionage”.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Haitian gangs massacre hundreds accused of 'witchcraft'
Under the Radar Vodou practices blamed for gang leader's son's illness, as elderly are hacked to death in Port au Prince
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Today's political cartoons - December 15, 2024
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - a green agenda, vaccine skepticism, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 humorously efficient cartoons about Trump's DOGE
Artists take on Trump's minions, wasteful spending, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Senate passes FAA bill with new consumer protections
Speed Read The legislation will require airlines to refund customers for flight delays
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Flybe: turbulence prompts a second nosedive
feature Airline’s latest collapse is a blow to ‘regional connectivity’
By The Week Staff Published
-
The Week Unwrapped: Factories, drug money and scanners
podcast Will a UK lawsuit lead to better working conditions in Thailand? Could a new way of funding antibiotics help tackle resistance? And is airline security about to change for the better?
By The Week Staff Published
-
The Week Unwrapped: Chinese protests, supersonic jets and university cheats
podcast Will mortgage strikes force China to change course? Does Concorde finally have a worthy successor? And what’s behind a rise in cheating?
By The Week Staff Published
-
Gallery: the top ten best airports in the world
In Pictures Hamad International Airport in Doha takes the No.1 spot in the 2021 Skytrax World Airport Awards
By The Week Staff Published
-
No. 10’s plan for airport Covid quarantine revealed - but is it too late?
feature Government to deploy security guards to enforce mandatory 11-night hotel stays
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
Coronavirus: what are the odds of catching Covid-19 on a plane?
Speed Read Studies suggest air travel is safe despite concerns about air quality
By Holden Frith Last updated
-
Reaction: ‘air bridges’ give Brits hope of holidays abroad
In Depth Quarantine rules may be relaxed to allow travel between countries with low coronavirus infection rates
By The Week Staff Published