RKSI · ICN · Seoul, Incheon
Planes near ICN: live flight tracking at Seoul Incheon International
Seoul Incheon International (ICN / RKSI) serves Seoul, Incheon, South Korea. Built on reclaimed tidal flats between two islands, west of the city.
The live map
Aircraft the volunteer receiver network can currently hear around Seoul. 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 ICN, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02:57 UTC | Arrival | HL8305 | B738 |
| 02:57 UTC | Arrival | KAL842 | B38M · HL8352 |
| 02:51 UTC | Arrival | HL8315 | BCS3 |
| 02:51 UTC | Departure | UAL806 | B789 · N25982 |
| 02:49 UTC | Arrival | ETD822 | A35K · A6-XWE |
| 02:47 UTC | Arrival | HKE618 | A321 · B-HTI |
| 02:46 UTC | Arrival | ASV712 | A321 · HL7789 |
| 02:45 UTC | Arrival | CSN687 | A20N · B-32LR |
| 02:43 UTC | Departure | HL8007 | B77W |
| 02:41 UTC | Arrival | JJA1612 | B738 · HL8034 |
| 02:41 UTC | Arrival | KAL892 | B77W · HL8250 |
| 02:41 UTC | Departure | SWM216 | A20N · XU-730 |
Showing the most recent 12 of 28 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 ICN. 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 30
| Flight | From | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KAL842B38M · HL8352 | Qingdao (Jiaozhou)ZSQD / TAO | on the ground | 22 kt | 1 nmWSW of the field |
| PAC947B77L · N714SA | Cincinnati / CovingtonKCVG / CVG | 3,100 ft | 188 kt | 10 nmSE of the field |
| KAL938B78X · HL8577 | ViennaLOWW / VIE | 2,075 ft | 221 kt | 15 nmSSE of the field |
| AAR111A333 · HL8286 | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 6,475 ft | 208 kt | 21 nmSE of the field |
| JJA1392B738 · HL8334 | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 20,225 ft | 393 kt | 72 nmESE of the field |
| CPA434A21N · B-HPR | Hong KongVHHH / HKG | 24,750 ft | 425 kt | 94 nmSSE of the field |
| ANA8475B763 · JA602F | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 24,000 ft | 449 kt | 107 nmESE of the field |
| ESR646B38M · HL8544 | FukuokaRJFF / FUK | 30,000 ft | 432 kt | 183 nmSE of the field |
| JNA346B38M · HL8568 | TokonameRJGG / NGO | 32,000 ft | 437 kt | 184 nmESE of the field |
| KAL252B77L · HL8075 | New YorkKJFK / JFK | 38,000 ft | 460 kt | 324 nmE of the field |
| ASV742A321 · HL8073 | TakamatsuRJOT / TAK | 18,400 ft | 332 kt | 388 nmESE of the field |
| JNA242B38M · HL8353 | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 17,075 ft | 349 kt | 420 nmESE of the field |
| KAL2172A21N · HL8712 | KobeRJBE / UKB | on the ground | 2 kt | 458 nmESE of the field |
| APJ705A21N · JA901P | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 3,025 ft | 213 kt | 460 nmESE of the field |
| TWB302B738 · HL8086 | OsakaRJBB / KIX | on the ground | 13 kt | 465 nmESE of the field |
| ESR606B38M · HL8541 | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 36,000 ft | 420 kt | 476 nmE of the field |
| JNA202B38M · HL7215 | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 36,000 ft | 422 kt | 524 nmE of the field |
| ABL163A321 · HL7210 | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 36,000 ft | 413 kt | 554 nmE of the field |
| FDX5154B77L · N862FD | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 38,000 ft | 450 kt | 570 nmE of the field |
| JJA1502B738 · HL8087 | SapporoRJCC / CTS | 34,000 ft | 436 kt | 590 nmENE of the field |
Outbound nearest 20 of 44
| Flight | To | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EVA145A321 · B-16213 | Kaohsiung (Xiaogang)RCKH / KHH | on the ground | 1 kt | 1 nmSSE of the field |
| UAL806B789 · N25982 | San FranciscoKSFO / SFO | 15,425 ft | 409 kt | 21 nmE of the field |
| ABL158A21N · HL8396 | FukuokaRJFF / FUK | 22,400 ft | 447 kt | 36 nmSE of the field |
| ESR631B38M · HL8715 | NahaROAH / OKA | 25,750 ft | 439 kt | 58 nmS of the field |
| KAL901B77W · HL8007 | Paris (Roissy-en-France,LFPG / CDG | 23,650 ft | 415 kt | 86 nmW of the field |
| KAL791B789 · HL8082 | FukuokaRJFF / FUK | 29,000 ft | 448 kt | 125 nmSE of the field |
| KAL917B78X · HL8573 | ZurichLSZH / ZRH | 23,600 ft | 426 kt | 129 nmW of the field |
| PTA503A320 · HL8742 | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 30,750 ft | 516 kt | 152 nmE of the field |
| JJA1471B738 · HL8063 | FukuokaRJFF / FUK | 26,375 ft | 425 kt | 174 nmSE of the field |
| KAL969B78X · HL8571 | PragueLKPR / PRG | 27,325 ft | 450 kt | 179 nmWSW of the field |
| PTA511 | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 37,000 ft | 519 kt | 179 nmE of the field |
| CKS531B744 · N767CK | AnchoragePANC / ANC | 33,000 ft | 534 kt | 222 nmESE of the field |
| TWB281B38M · HL8753 | NahaROAH / OKA | 34,000 ft | 463 kt | 273 nmS of the field |
| TWB303B38M · HL8581 | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 33,400 ft | 471 kt | 311 nmESE of the field |
| KAL741B38M · HL8351 | TokonameRJGG / NGO | 28,700 ft | 478 kt | 347 nmE of the field |
| JJA1305B38M · HL8552 | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 17,775 ft | 360 kt | 388 nmESE of the field |
| KAL765B773 · HL7533 | SapporoRJCC / CTS | 35,000 ft | 524 kt | 401 nmE of the field |
| APJ714A20N · JA220P | OsakaRJBB / KIX | 2,850 ft | 161 kt | 467 nmESE of the field |
| JJA1103B38M · HL8592 | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 35,000 ft | 501 kt | 489 nmE of the field |
| KAL703A388 · HL7621 | NaritaRJAA / NRT | 35,000 ft | 528 kt | 548 nmE of the field |
About Seoul Incheon International
- ICAO codeRKSI
- IATA codeICN
- ServesSeoul
- RegionIncheon, South Korea
- Coordinates37.469°N, 126.451°E
Incheon sits on land reclaimed between two islands in the Yellow Sea, west of Seoul. Its approaches are almost entirely over water, and the airspace around it is unusually constrained by the proximity of a heavily militarised border to the north. It is one of the principal transfer points between Asia, North America and Europe.
Look at how the traffic avoids the north. There is a hard edge to the map here that has nothing to do with terrain or weather, and it is one of the clearest examples anywhere of politics drawn into airspace.
What the codes mean
Airports carry two identifiers and they are not interchangeable.
ICN 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.
RKSI is the ICAO code: four letters, used by air traffic
control, flight planning systems and trackers like this one. Its first
two letters, RK, marks
South Korea, 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 Seoul 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:
