Radar is technically still the global standard for tracking flights, but it has many limitations — numerous areas don't have radar coverage, like the majority of the ocean. Today, flight tracking is shifting to a surveillance system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast, or ADS-B.

Modern flight trackers utilize a combination of four primary technologies to provide real-time data: ADS-B, Radar, Satellite, and ML Algorithms. The core technology is ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast), where aircraft autonomously broadcast their GPS position, altitude, and speed via radio signals. These signals are picked up by a global network of tens of thousands of ground-based receivers. In remote areas or over oceans where ground stations are absent, Satellite-based ADS-B receivers track the signals from space. Traditional Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) provides a backup by "interrogating" aircraft transponders. In 2026, these trackers also use Machine Learning to cross-reference flight schedules, weather data, and historical patterns to predict arrival times with high accuracy, even when an aircraft is temporarily out of direct signal range.