EGLL · LHR · London, England
Planes near LHR: live flight tracking at London Heathrow
London Heathrow (LHR / EGLL) serves London, England, United Kingdom. Four named holding stacks, and one of the most closely managed arrival flows anywhere.
The live map
Aircraft the volunteer receiver network can currently hear around London. The frame is fixed on the field; tap or click an aircraft to open its full details.
Nothing here is filtered. Military aircraft, aircraft in the FAA's LADD privacy programme and aircraft using temporary addresses all appear the same way anything else does. Open the full map to pan, zoom and switch layers.
Movements we watched happen
Snapshot written . This page refreshes by itself while it is open.
These are transitions the receiver network actually observed at LHR, each with the time it was seen. Nothing here is guessed from a timetable.
Why there may be fewer departures than arrivals
A departure is only counted once a receiver has seen the aircraft on the ground here first. That guard stops us inventing takeoffs for aircraft that merely flew overhead, and it costs us real ones: hearing an aircraft sitting on an airport surface needs a receiver with line of sight to that surface, which is the hardest reception there is. An arrival only needs the aircraft to have been seen airborne, and airborne coverage is very good.
So at any airport without a clear view of the ground, this list will show fewer departures than actually happened. If you see more arrivals than departures below, read that as a fact about where the antennas are, not about the airport.
| Time | Movement | Flight | Aircraft |
|---|---|---|---|
| No movements have been watched here in the current recording window. This list fills continuously, and a short one usually means quiet hours or a thin view of the airport surface rather than an empty airport. | |||
Nothing recorded here yet in the current window.
What appears to be inbound and outbound right now
Where the aircraft in range right now are most likely heading, worked out from their callsigns rather than watched happening.
How this list is built
We take the aircraft the receiver network can currently hear, read the callsign each one is broadcasting, and look that callsign up in an index of the routes it has actually flown before. An entry means this callsign's most commonly observed route ends at LHR. That is a good guide to where a flight is going. It is not a flight plan: nobody has told us today's routing, and we would rather say that than dress an inference up as a schedule.
The consequences are worth knowing. A diversion or an unusual routing will be listed wrong. A charter, a positioning leg, or any flight the index has not seen before is missing entirely. You will occasionally see an aircraft here sitting on the ground on the far side of a continent, which is the method showing its working rather than hiding it. There are no scheduled times or arrival estimates on this page because neither can be computed honestly from what we hold.
For gates, delays and cancellations the airline and the airport are authoritative. This page is for what is actually in the air.
Inbound nearest 20 of 58
| Flight | From | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BAW58LA35K · G-XWBC | Cape TownFACT / CPT | 38,000 ft | 442 kt | 419 nmSSE of the field |
| BAW34B789 · G-ZBKB | SepangWMKK / KUL | 39,975 ft | 473 kt | 441 nmE of the field |
| BAW16B789 · G-ZBKC | SingaporeWSSS / SIN | 39,975 ft | 451 kt | 556 nmE of the field |
| CPA251B77W · B-KQJ | Hong KongVHHH / HKG | 36,000 ft | 445 kt | 597 nmESE of the field |
| SIA322A388 · 9V-SKP | SingaporeWSSS / SIN | 38,000 ft | 451 kt | 598 nmE of the field |
| MAS2A359 · 9M-MAB | SepangWMKK / KUL | 40,000 ft | 449 kt | 646 nmE of the field |
| BAW12B77W · G-STBL | SingaporeWSSS / SIN | 36,000 ft | 481 kt | 714 nmE of the field |
| CPA255B77W · B-KQW | Hong KongVHHH / HKG | 32,000 ft | 463 kt | 809 nmESE of the field |
| OMA103B789 · A4O-SC | Muscat/SeebOOMS / MCT | 36,000 ft | 485 kt | 860 nmE of the field |
| BAW64B78X · G-ZBLL | NairobiHKJK / NBO | 36,000 ft | 540 kt | 893 nmSSE of the field |
| QFA1A388 · VH-OQK | SingaporeWSSS / SIN | 38,000 ft | 459 kt | 906 nmE of the field |
| QTR57WA388 · A7-APJ | DohaOTHH / DOH | 39,975 ft | 449 kt | 987 nmESE of the field |
| ETD5W2A388 · A6-APG | Abu DhabiOMAA / AUH | 38,025 ft | 433 kt | 1,108 nmESE of the field |
| AIC161A359 · VT-JRE | New DelhiVIDP / DEL | 40,000 ft | 420 kt | 1,270 nmESE of the field |
| UAE7A388 · A6-EOI | DubaiOMDB / DXB | 38,000 ft | 424 kt | 1,319 nmESE of the field |
| QTR119A35K · A7-ANJ | DohaOTHH / DOH | 38,000 ft | 499 kt | 1,523 nmESE of the field |
| UAL901B789 · N81107 | San FranciscoKSFO / SFO | 37,000 ft | 0 kt | 1,658 nmNW of the field |
| MSR783A20N · SU-GFK | CairoHECA / CAI | 26,550 ft | 430 kt | 1,825 nmESE of the field |
| DAL1A332 · N852NW | New YorkKJFK / JFK | 38,000 ft | 0 kt | 1,890 nmWNW of the field |
| JBU7A21N · N4076J | New YorkKJFK / JFK | 34,025 ft | 534 kt | 2,097 nmWNW of the field |
Outbound 20 aircraft
| Flight | To | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VIR346B789 · G-VFAN | BengaluruVOBL / BLR | 38,975 ft | 541 kt | 1,974 nmE of the field |
| BAW6NCB789 · G-ZBKO | MontréalCYUL / YUL | 11,825 ft | 288 kt | 2,775 nmWNW of the field |
| ETD42BA388 · A6-APH | Abu DhabiOMAA / AUH | 37,950 ft | 490 kt | 2,829 nmESE of the field |
| OMA102B789 · A4O-SG | Muscat/SeebOOMS / MCT | 39,000 ft | 492 kt | 2,865 nmE of the field |
| AIC130B789 · VT-AWA | MumbaiVABB / BOM | 39,000 ft | 489 kt | 2,923 nmE of the field |
| ETD88CB789 · A6-BLB | Abu DhabiOMAA / AUH | 5,200 ft | 249 kt | 2,972 nmESE of the field |
| UAE4A388 · A6-EOV | DubaiOMDB / DXB | 1,225 ft | 151 kt | 2,973 nmE of the field |
| AIC2018B789 · VT-TSD | New DelhiVIDP / DEL | 39,000 ft | 494 kt | 3,024 nmE of the field |
| SIA319A388 · 9V-SKS | SingaporeWSSS / SIN | 37,000 ft | 509 kt | 3,214 nmE of the field |
| IGO24VB789 · LN-FNB | MumbaiVABB / BOM | 36,975 ft | 482 kt | 3,291 nmE of the field |
| VIR354B789 · G-VNYL | MumbaiVABB / BOM | 39,000 ft | 490 kt | 3,450 nmE of the field |
| UAL935B789 · N19951 | Los AngelesKLAX / LAX | 39,975 ft | 472 kt | 3,740 nmNW of the field |
| BAW135B772 · G-YMML | MumbaiVABB / BOM | 18,375 ft | 420 kt | 3,851 nmE of the field |
| VIR155MB789 · G-VZIG | Las VegasKLAS / LAS | 39,975 ft | 439 kt | 3,880 nmNW of the field |
| DAL21A339 · N436DX | SeattleKSEA / SEA | 40,025 ft | 411 kt | 3,996 nmNW of the field |
| BAW2MWA35K · G-XWBG | Las VegasKLAS / LAS | 40,000 ft | 432 kt | 4,251 nmNW of the field |
| VIR316B789 · G-VMAP | BengaluruVOBL / BLR | 7,675 ft | 267 kt | 4,346 nmE of the field |
| AAL137B77W · N724AN | Los AngelesKLAX / LAX | 35,975 ft | 449 kt | 4,537 nmNW of the field |
| UAL939B789 · N81105 | San FranciscoKSFO / SFO | on the ground | 8 kt | 4,653 nmNW of the field |
| AAL9601B772 · N782AN | PhiladelphiaKPHL / PHL | 34,000 ft | 482 kt | 5,002 nmSW of the field |
About London Heathrow
- ICAO codeEGLL
- IATA codeLHR
- ServesLondon
- RegionEngland, United Kingdom
- Coordinates51.471°N, 0.460°W
Heathrow sits west of central London and runs at an intensity that leaves almost no slack in the system. Its most distinctive feature on a map is the holding: four stacks, known as Bovingdon, Lambourne, Biggin and Ockham, sit around the London area, and arriving aircraft are routinely parked in one of them before being released toward the field. Those neat racetrack ovals are visible from a long way out.
Watch the stacks rather than the runway. How many aircraft are circling, and at what altitudes, tells you more about how the airport is coping than anything happening on the ground does.
What the codes mean
Airports carry two identifiers and they are not interchangeable.
LHR is the IATA code: three letters, the one printed on a
boarding pass and a baggage tag, assigned for commercial purposes and reused across
the world without any geographic logic.
EGLL is the ICAO code: four letters, used by air traffic
control, flight planning systems and trackers like this one. Its first
two letters, EG, marks
the United Kingdom, because ICAO allocates the code space by region.
The callsigns in the lists above are a third thing again. A callsign is what the crew typed into the transponder for this leg, so it changes flight by flight, while the registration and the 24-bit hex address stay with the airframe. When a callsign and a registration disagree, the registration is usually the more reliable of the two.
How to read the numbers
Altitude is pressure altitude, which is what the aircraft's air data system reads with a standard pressure setting. It is not height above the ground and it is not always the altitude the crew is flying to. Near London that gap is most obvious on approach, when a tracker can show a figure that does not match what is on the flight deck.
Ground speed is speed across the earth, not through the air. A strong tailwind can add a hundred knots or more to it without the aircraft flying any faster, which is why two aircraft at the same level going opposite ways can show wildly different numbers. Track is the direction of travel over the ground, which is not the direction the nose is pointing when there is any crosswind at all.
Aircraft go missing from this map for reasons that have nothing to do with the aircraft. Reception is line of sight, so terrain and distance cut it off abruptly; a good deal of light aviation in the United States broadcasts on 978 MHz rather than 1090 MHz; and plenty of aircraft, including gliders and older light types, carry no ADS-B at all and are not required to. How ADS-B works covers all of that properly.
Other airports on the map
The nearest fields with their own live page:
