LONDON – One company that is standing out from the rest in the flight tracking world is AirNav Systems’ RadarBox.com.
AviationSource got to sit down with CEO Andre Brandao to discuss his time at the reigns of an emerging and up-and-coming flight tracking site.
The AirNav Systems brand has been around for quite some time now and does have a one-up advantage over competitors by being able to track the Concorde when it was still in commercial service.
Now, fast forward over 20 years later, the RadarBox product has evolved to include multiple features, such as:
- Airband radio – RadarBox currently features 21 countries and 40+ airports where users can listen to the ATC chatter right from the website or app.
- Aircraft utilization statistics – Aircraft utilization is quite an interesting part of AirNav RadarBox as it breaks down the fleet of an airline and tells you information such as average flight duration, average flights per day, and average flight hours per day.
- Route heatmap – Airport Heat Maps convert the dry and drab route statistics into informative visualizations, which display the frequency of flights to different airports or cities from a particular originating airport.
- Statistics – AirNav RadarBox offers a wide variety of aviation statistics extrapolated from commercial, general, and business flight data. You may notice that we use this information here at AviationSource.
- Multi-select tools.
- New aircraft icons.
- Timezones.
- Runway extensions.
- Filter by squawk code.
- Playback from previous days or months.
- Heads-up-display to watch an aircraft from a cockpit perspective.
- Arrival and departure gates.
- FIR airspace setup.
- Distance to ADS-B station.
The company has made it further into the public spotlight and has been featured by influencers such as Sam Chui, amongst others.
Without further ado, let’s get into the conversation that we had with CEO Andre Brandao:
The Interview…
JF: Andre, thank you for taking the time to sit down with AviationSource. Let’s start off with our first question. What was the motivation behind creating AirNav Systems/RadarBox?
AB: AirNav was created when I was a student at university studying Computer Science Engineering. I was also a ham radio operator who wanted to know where the flights were when listening to long-range trans-Atlantic HF communications.
This interest led to me creating a windows based application to track flights, which ended up being extremely popular, especially in the UK. This was how the company started.
JF: I see the website has come a long way over the course of 2022. Can you go into detail about what changes have been made this year?
AB: We’ve released a number of features on both our apps and website, including new layers and graphical enhancements. Our weather data and network coverage have also significantly improved.
In terms of hardware, our new in-house developed FPGA ADS-B receivers will be available in Q1 2023. On the data side, we continue to develop our processing algorithms for improved data quality. More flight data sources will be added in the near future.
In the B2B space, AirNav Systems has several major aerospace companies as clients and continues to experience strong growth. AirNav Systems data power many of the flight tracking solutions used by major airlines.
JF: Where do you see RadarBox, going into the next 10 years?
AB: We want to continue to pursue excellence in terms of flight tracking data quality – by adding more features to our apps and websites, ADS-B receivers, and network coverage.
Our social networks will be the source of reliable and unique flight tracking information.
We are also applying our widely tested AIS technology into the maritime world and have recently launched the vessel tracking platform ShipXplorer.com.
JF: How is AirNav Systems different from the likes of FlightRadar24, FlightAware & ADS-B Exchange in terms of competition?
AB: AirNav Systems data powers some of the biggest aerospace companies in the world.
Our flight data is aggregated from over 14 different sources, including the FAA, Eurocontrol, and 30,000 ADS-B receivers located in 180 countries.
AirNav Systems has a complete set of solutions: we develop our own hardware, which, deployed all over the world, feeds our network. This is the base of our B2C (website and apps) and B2B (professional flight data feeds) solutions.
We are known for having a professional, fast, flexible, and friendly approach to our clients.
JF: Why should our readers consider subscribing to RadarBox.com?
AB: We listen to our customers and continuously add new features based on their requests.
We also have various flight-tracking solutions that cater to every aviation need – from aviation enthusiasts and spotters to aircraft operators looking to be compliant with flight-tracking requirements.
JF: Is there anything you would like to say to our readers about AirNav Systems?
AB: We’ve been in this market for over 20 years, and we have backend and frontend teams ready to implement new features never seen in flight tracking solutions. So send us your ideas – we’re listening.
Overall…
It remains clear that RadarBox has come quite a long way in the last two decades, especially with the market being fiercely competitive with the likes of FlightRadar24, FlightAware, ADS-B Exchange, and others.
Looking ahead, the company is planning some major developments, which will see plenty more benefits to their users, as well as to stakeholders who use their services.
For now, all eyes will now be on the company to see where else they choose to take the flight tracking dynamic next.
