The map is filled with small yellow planes - except for a large void over the Middle East. The Israeli and US attack on Iran last weekend is clearly visible in Flightradar24's real-time map of world air traffic.
Interest in the Swedish site has been enormous in the past week, notes Mikael Robertsson.
On March 1, the number of visitors was about four times higher. Now we're down to two to three times the usual traffic, he says.
Followed the Queen
The first breakthrough for the site came back in 2010. While the world was trying to learn how to spell “Eyjafjallajökull,” the eruption of the Icelandic volcano paralyzed air traffic across Europe for several days.
For a few hours we didn't have a single plane on the map - but that's when we had the most traffic. Even though it was really just like looking at a Google map.
Other events that have caused the number of visitors to skyrocket include when Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared in 2014, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, and when Russia's offensive war against Ukraine began in February 2022.
However, it can also be about individual flights, such as when around five million people followed the plane that carried the coffin of the English Queen Elizabeth from Edinburgh to Northolt airbase in London in 2022.
Not bad for a project that was initially intended mostly as an advertising campaign.
Olov Lindberg and I were actually looking for ways to market another site we were running at the time, flygresor.se.
But sometime after the ash cloud, we realized it wasn't just a hobby; it actually had the potential to become a major global service.
Highly rated
Just over 15 years later, the original site has long since been sold.
Last fall, the founders also sold 35 percent of Flightradar24 to the venture capital firm Sprints. According to media reports, the company was then valued at just over SEK 4 billion.
Mikael Robertsson does not want to comment on any sums, but notes that the company - which has grown to approximately 80 employees - has become too big to operate without help.
"We brought in a new partner to help us. It's been a really exciting journey, but we have no experience whatsoever in running such a large company," he says.
