Sky Route


Sky Route is a small project I made to visualize air traffic above and around airports, through the creation of traffic images


Languages used were Python and MySQL


The data is initially scrapped from ADS-B Exchange, mostly from the Historical Data section. Then, a python script sees which flights fit withing a 100km square around the airport, saving that to the database under a specifc airport table. That info is then fed into another python script that draws lines between each flight


Below are some examples of flights that have been completed. I am posting these flights daily in my instagram @skyroute2025, so check that out!


You can also see all completed fligts in the Git repo listed above. Some videos from airports may not be available due to Git's file size limits


Some notes about the logic behind the creation of the images

  1. The airport coordinates are taken from Google Maps, some airports maybe centered on the runways for better visibility of the flights
  2. The colors are set with the airport or airport's location in mind, with arrivals and departures being the exact opposite colors. For example, the default color of the San Francisco Internaional Airport is the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge, while Honolulu utilizes the same shade of pink as Hawaiian Airline liveries
  3. Lines are only draw if two points are close together. Since the historical data from ADS-B Exchange is recorded every 5 seconds, some points may be very far away from each other and cause the images to look disconnected, or make lines overlap weirdly