MMMX · MEX · Mexico City, Mexico City
Planes near MEX: live flight tracking at Mexico City International
Mexico City International (MEX / MMMX) serves Mexico City, Mexico City, Mexico. High in a mountain basin, where thin air changes every aircraft performance figure.
The live map
Aircraft the volunteer receiver network can currently hear around Mexico City. 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 MEX, 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 MEX. 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 19 aircraft
| Flight | From | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMX555B39M · N469AM | CancúnMMUN / CUN | 11,925 ft | 233 kt | 20 nmENE of the field |
| VIV1353A21N · XA-VBM | MonterreyMMMY / MTY | 20,100 ft | 313 kt | 32 nmNNE of the field |
| AMX861B738 · XA-AML | VeracruzMMVR / VER | 28,000 ft | 428 kt | 81 nmESE of the field |
| VOI741A21N · XA-VSK | Las VegasKLAS / LAS | 29,000 ft | 460 kt | 87 nmNW of the field |
| VOI731A21N · XA-VST | HoustonKIAH / IAH | 36,025 ft | 452 kt | 381 nmNNE of the field |
| AMX185B39M · N959AM | TijuanaMMTJ / TIJ | 35,025 ft | 465 kt | 486 nmNW of the field |
| VOI801A321 · XA-VLH | Dallas-Fort WorthKDFW / DFW | 36,000 ft | 460 kt | 499 nmNNE of the field |
| VOI751A20N · XA-VRD | San AntonioKSAT / SAT | on the ground | 0 kt | 607 nmN of the field |
| FDX9130B763 · N168FE | MemphisKMEM / MEM | 38,025 ft | 440 kt | 780 nmNE of the field |
| AMX643B38M · XA-MAT | Los AngelesKLAX / LAX | 39,000 ft | 458 kt | 814 nmNW of the field |
| AMX715B39M · XA-JGQ | HermosilloMMHO / HMO | 18,350 ft | 404 kt | 833 nmNW of the field |
| FLE2820B38M · C-FLKC | VancouverCYVR / YVR | 37,025 ft | 463 kt | 1,022 nmNNW of the field |
| ROU2096B38M · C-GEHY | VancouverCYVR / YVR | 31,000 ft | 474 kt | 1,114 nmNW of the field |
| VOI713A20N · XA-VRT | Los AngelesKLAX / LAX | 37,025 ft | 459 kt | 1,153 nmNW of the field |
| VIV1255A21N · XA-VXA | TijuanaMMTJ / TIJ | 25,350 ft | 420 kt | 1,166 nmNW of the field |
| WJA2228B737 · C-FWSO | CalgaryCYYC / YYC | 37,000 ft | 466 kt | 1,328 nmNNW of the field |
| ACA995B38M · C-FSKZ | MontréalCYUL / YUL | 34,000 ft | 446 kt | 1,534 nmNNE of the field |
| THY184B789 · TC-LLP | IstanbulLTFM / IST | 37,000 ft | 0 kt | 4,120 nmNE of the field |
| UAE81WB77L · A6-EWB | BarcelonaLEBL / BCN | 36,000 ft | 445 kt | 6,474 nmNE of the field |
Outbound 15 aircraft
| Flight | To | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMX956B39M · N804AM | MonterreyMMMY / MTY | 9,250 ft | 266 kt | 6 nmWSW of the field |
| VIV146A320 · XA-VAE | Los AngelesKLAX / LAX | 36,050 ft | 420 kt | 204 nmNW of the field |
| AMX558B738 · XA-OCC | CancúnMMUN / CUN | 39,000 ft | 465 kt | 291 nmE of the field |
| VOI244A20N · XA-VRF | MonterreyMMMY / MTY | 23,325 ft | 409 kt | 343 nmN of the field |
| AMX184B39M · XA-MIJ | TijuanaMMTJ / TIJ | 36,000 ft | 461 kt | 431 nmNW of the field |
| VIV1020 | CancúnMMUN / CUN | 27,950 ft | 448 kt | 583 nmENE of the field |
| AMX556B39M · XA-MAZ | CancúnMMUN / CUN | 19,400 ft | 380 kt | 613 nmENE of the field |
| VOI702A20N · N532VL | ChicagoKORD / ORD | 37,000 ft | 458 kt | 768 nmNNE of the field |
| AMX682B38M · XA-AMP | ChicagoKORD / ORD | 37,000 ft | 426 kt | 865 nmN of the field |
| VOI770A21N · XA-VSC | OaklandKOAK / OAK | 36,025 ft | 452 kt | 1,055 nmNW of the field |
| AMX182B39M · XA-MJJ | TijuanaMMTJ / TIJ | 20,175 ft | 426 kt | 1,174 nmNW of the field |
| AMX664B38M · XA-SSR | San FranciscoKSFO / SFO | 38,000 ft | 439 kt | 1,206 nmNW of the field |
| UAL1272B38M · N47282 | San FranciscoKSFO / SFO | 38,000 ft | 441 kt | 1,290 nmNW of the field |
| DAL605A319 · N333NB | MinneapolisKMSP / MSP | 16,575 ft | 355 kt | 1,521 nmN of the field |
| CSN8032A359 · B-309W | TijuanaMMTJ / TIJ | 40,100 ft | 500 kt | 6,985 nmNW of the field |
About Mexico City International
- ICAO codeMMMX
- IATA codeMEX
- ServesMexico City
- RegionMexico City, Mexico
- Coordinates19.436°N, 99.070°W
Mexico City International sits inside the Valley of Mexico, a basin ringed by mountains and volcanoes at a considerable elevation. The thin air at this altitude affects everything: takeoff distances, climb rates, and the relationship between an aircraft's true speed and the speed its instruments read. It is one of the few major airports where altitude is a first-order operational fact rather than a footnote.
The surrounding terrain is the other constraint. Departures climb inside the basin before crossing the ridges, so the vertical profile of an outbound flight here looks quite unlike one from a coastal field.
What the codes mean
Airports carry two identifiers and they are not interchangeable.
MEX 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.
MMMX is the ICAO code: four letters, used by air traffic
control, flight planning systems and trackers like this one. Its first
two letters, MM, marks
Mexico, 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 Mexico City 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:
