KMEM · MEM · Memphis, Tennessee
Planes near MEM: live flight tracking at Memphis International
Memphis International (MEM / KMEM) serves Memphis, Tennessee, United States. A field that is quiet by day and extraordinarily busy in the small hours.
The live map
Aircraft the volunteer receiver network can currently hear around Memphis. 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 MEM, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02:32 UTC | Arrival | N243SY | E75L |
1 movement in the current recording 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 MEM. 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 60
| Flight | From | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAL1641B738 · N997NN | CharlotteKCLT / CLT | 275 ft | 136 kt | 1 nmS of the field |
| FDX137A306 · N663FE | WinnipegCYWG / YWG | 1,675 ft | 149 kt | 6 nmS of the field |
| UPS7826B763 · N317UP | TampaKTPA / TPA | 3,625 ft | 275 kt | 19 nmSE of the field |
| FDX155B752 · N954FD | OttawaCYOW / YOW | 12,775 ft | 349 kt | 25 nmNE of the field |
| FDX2226B763 · N193FE | OrlandoKMCO / MCO | 7,525 ft | 266 kt | 28 nmSE of the field |
| FDX1328A306 · N691FE | RochesterKROC / ROC | 9,925 ft | 330 kt | 44 nmNNE of the field |
| FDX2266A30B · N725FD | Fort MyersKRSW / RSW | 12,450 ft | 342 kt | 51 nmESE of the field |
| FDX1201B763 · N248FE | Dallas-Fort WorthKDFW / DFW | 21,275 ft | 447 kt | 78 nmSW of the field |
| LBQ840PC12 · N687QD | KLZU | 10,900 ft | 226 kt | 81 nmENE of the field |
| FDX121A306 · N650FE | EdmontonCYEG / YEG | 30,425 ft | 487 kt | 88 nmNW of the field |
| FDX1380B763 · N278FE | Dallas-Fort WorthKDFW / DFW | 29,325 ft | 454 kt | 96 nmESE of the field |
| FDX1224B763 · N259FE | RichmondKRIC / RIC | 30,075 ft | 438 kt | 102 nmESE of the field |
| DAL1577B712 · N971AT | AtlantaKATL / ATL | 26,000 ft | 421 kt | 118 nmSE of the field |
| FDX1281B763 · N183FE | Greenville/Greer/SpartanKGSP / GSP | 28,000 ft | 499 kt | 120 nmESE of the field |
| FDX2338A306 · N689FE | NorfolkKORF / ORF | 34,000 ft | 463 kt | 122 nmENE of the field |
| FDX1269A306 · N672FE | FlintKFNT / FNT | 30,975 ft | 504 kt | 127 nmNNE of the field |
| FDX2210B763 · N270FE | TampaKTPA / TPA | 35,275 ft | 473 kt | 132 nmESE of the field |
| FDX1346B763 · N260FE | ClevelandKCLE / CLE | 34,025 ft | 520 kt | 157 nmNNE of the field |
| FDX1296A306 · N679FE | BuffaloKBUF / BUF | 34,000 ft | 510 kt | 192 nmNE of the field |
| FDX1205B763 · N299FE | ChicagoKORD / ORD | 34,025 ft | 516 kt | 259 nmNNE of the field |
Outbound 10 aircraft
| Flight | To | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VHOJLSR22 · VH-OJL | TupeloKTUP / TUP | 10,900 ft | 157 kt | 265 nmSE of the field |
| FDX9130B763 · N168FE | Mexico CityMMMX / MEX | 38,025 ft | 440 kt | 306 nmS of the field |
| FFT4625A20N · N438FR | DenverKDEN / DEN | on the ground | 11 kt | 756 nmWNW of the field |
| FDX5022B77L · N845FD | Paris (Roissy-en-France,LFPG / CDG | 37,000 ft | 578 kt | 1,101 nmENE of the field |
| SWA4127B38M · N9000D | DallasKDAL / DAL | on the ground | 0 kt | 1,228 nmW of the field |
| N154TS | NewarkKEWR / EWR | 29,900 ft | 470 kt | 1,317 nmW of the field |
| DAL2082B738 · N389DA | Los AngelesKLAX / LAX | 8,025 ft | 278 kt | 1,376 nmW of the field |
| FDX9162B77L · N861FD | AnchoragePANC / ANC | 13,725 ft | 265 kt | 2,716 nmNW of the field |
| FDX5432B77L · N856FD | AnchoragePANC / ANC | 38,000 ft | 434 kt | 5,488 nmNW of the field |
| FDX85B77L · N895FD | AnchoragePANC / ANC | 2,100 ft | 174 kt | 5,708 nmNW of the field |
About Memphis International
- ICAO codeKMEM
- IATA codeMEM
- ServesMemphis
- RegionTennessee, United States
- Coordinates35.044°N, 89.976°W
Memphis International sits south of the city near the Mississippi, and it does not behave like a passenger airport. Its defining operation is overnight freight: a very large number of aircraft arrive within a short window after midnight, are unloaded and reloaded, and leave again before dawn. Watch it at three in the afternoon and it looks modest. Watch it at three in the morning and it is one of the busiest places on the map.
If the lists below look thin, check the time. This field's rhythm is nearly the inverse of every other airport on this site, and a snapshot taken in daylight tells you very little about it.
What the codes mean
Airports carry two identifiers and they are not interchangeable.
MEM 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.
KMEM is the ICAO code: four letters, used by air traffic
control, flight planning systems and trackers like this one. Its first
letter, K, marks
the contiguous United States, 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 Memphis 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:
