🛫 Live Flight Monitoring: A Real Time Dashboard for Aviation Enthusiasts

Hi, I'm Sunder Kumar a Computer Science student and passionate developer. Besides coding, I’ve always been fascinated by how airports handle such complex traffic systems. So I asked myself:

What if I could track and visualize that data in real time?

That’s how Flight Stats HK was born a fully functional web app that tracks live flight statistics using open data from Hong Kong International Airport.

🔗 Live Demo: https://flight-stats-main-sunder-kumars-projects.vercel.app/

🎯 Key Features at a Glance

• 📅 Date-Based Search – Choose any date to retrieve flight stats.
• 🔁 Live Data Fetching – Uses AJAX to fetch real-time arrival/departure info.
• 📊 Dynamic Charts & Histograms – Visualize flights per hour for each direction.
• 🌍 Top Airports – Discover busiest origins and destinations.
• ⚡ Performance Snapshot – See total flights, unique destinations, and flight statuses.
• 📱 Responsive UI – Works smoothly on mobile and desktop.
• 🚀 Deployed on Vercel – Fast, serverless deployment for global access.

🧭 How the App Works

1️⃣ Select a Date
Start by choosing a date. The app validates your input and prepares to fetch matching flight data.

2️⃣ Retrieve Real-Time Flight Info
Flight statistics are retrieved via a proxy using AJAX (Fetch API) to bypass CORS limitations and access the Hong Kong Airport Open Data API.

3️⃣ View and Analyze

You’ll get:

• Total number of departures and arrivals
• Status breakdown (e.g., on-time, delayed)
• Hourly histogram of flight volume
• Rankings of top destination/origin airports All insights update instantly as the data loads.

📊 Dashboard Sections

📈 Flight Summary

• Total Departures & Arrivals
• Number of active airports
• Most common routes

📍 Top Airports
Ranked list of:

• Most common destinations (from HK)
• Most common origins (to HK)

Includes:

• IATA Code
• Airport Name
• Total flights per airport

📉 Hour-Wise Flight Trends

• Histograms for departures & arrivals
• Toggle to switch between views
• Tooltips and hoverable bars for easy analysis

🧠 Why Airport Data Matters

Airports are incredibly complex systems that rely on data to optimize traffic, avoid delays, and improve passenger experience. With open data becoming more accessible, we can now visualize and understand these systems better than ever.

This project makes real-time aviation data digestible and interactive — useful for aviation geeks, students, and data lovers alike.

⚠️ Current Limitations

• Static backend (PHP proxy) used only for CORS workaround
• Limited to Hong Kong Airport data only
• No map-based visualizations (for now!)

🚀 Planned Future Enhancements

• 🌍 Support for multiple airports and global flight data
• 🗺️ Live map of inbound/outbound flights
• 📱 PWA version for mobile devices
• 💬 Multi-language support (starting with Chinese & English)
• ✈️ Integration with airline APIs for more details (e.g., airline logos, aircraft type)

🏁 Final Thoughts
Flight Stats HK was a passion project that allowed me to combine:

• API integration
• Real-time dashboard design
• Data visualization
• Clean, responsive UI

Whether you're a traveler, student, or just love air traffic data this app has something to offer.

“Airports are where the world connects. Now, with data you can understand that connection.”

💬 Feel free to try it out, share feedback, or connect with me for collaborations!

📌 Built using:

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Fetch API, Chart.js, PHP (for API relay)

🚀 Deployed via Vercel