One of the best things about the latest update to Flightradar24.com on the web is the expanded Filters functionality. If you’re anything like me, you may occasionally wonder how many A380s are in the air at this very moment, or where in the world the 737 MAX is flying, or how many flights Lufthansa has in the air right now. The new Filters feature makes it easy to look at exactly what you want, whether you’re idly browsing airplane activity or researching industry trends.
The wonderful world of Filters
You’ll find Filters are now easily accessible from the bottom toolbar. The next handy improvement is that filters are automatically saved once you’ve inputted them, and you can toggle them on and off in whatever combination you like. Say you want to drill down into a specific fleet type at Lufthansa, and get sense via the global map of where that type is being sent. Or maybe you’d like to look at all 777s in the air but then toggle off the -200, -200LR and -300 to be able to see a graphical representation of just how popular the -300ER is these days. It’s all possible.
Filtering for the A321neo
Just now I was thinking about the A321neo and wondering what kind of flights the plane type is operating these days. I had it in mind because of the general trend toward using smaller aircraft during the pandemic, and recent, related comments from the Lufthansa CEO that I wrote about in a LinkedIn article yesterday. (By the way these work best as a discussion, so we’d love to hear your thoughts over there and if you’re on LinkedIn and haven’t followed us yet, please do.)
One line of thinking says that the A321neo, and especially its LR and XLR versions – which boast the longest range of any aircraft that size – will become increasingly common on long-haul flights. It’s certainly true that for some airlines it is very appealing. A carrier like Air Arabia, for example – which doesn’t want to invest in wide-bodies but wants to fly from the Middle East to cities like Kuala Lumpur while keeping its low-cost model. SAS has some A321LR entering the fleet soon, and they’ll no doubt come in handy as transatlantic demand starts to slowly tick up again and the airline restarts service to smaller cities in the US, for example, or even perhaps looks to implement new service from smaller Nordic cities.
If we Filter for the A321neo on Flightradar24.com, the map gives us a quick sense of where the majority are active. To do so you just need to click on Filters, then choose Aircraft type (ICAO) from the drop-down menu and type in A21N (as in the image above). For more detail on how to get the most out of Filters (and how to find the codes you need), have a look at our post all about it here.
American’s A321neos to and from Hawaii
For example, we can see that American Airlines clearly likes the A321neo for its Hawaii flights. These have been showing up more and more as the airline has taken delivery of more airframes. In the old days many of these would have been on the 757. Then for a while it was on the standard A321 with winglets but the older engines (the CEO, as its known). Now we see a lot of the neo on these routes.
You can even learn something
The added bonus with filtering down to a certain aircraft type is you may very well notice some unusual flights or other activity that tells you something you didn’t know. For instance I hadn’t realized Ural Airlines was flying the A321neo, and this particular route, Yekaterinburg to Frankfurt, seems ideally suited to the aircraft.
And here’s an intriguing test flight from and to Hamburg (XFW) but doing a loop over northern Norway. (The aircraft will eventually join the Air Transat fleet.)
Another perfect use of the A321neo? TAP’s flight from Lisbon to Sao Tome. Must make a note to try and fly that route one day soon.
Sky is the limit
As you can see, I could do this all day. And so can everyone else. If you find any interesting or noteworthy flights using Filters, let us know! We’d love to see what you come across.
