Automatic tracking works in two tiers. Some airlines get full live tracking: off-blocks to on-blocks, straight from the airline’s own operational feed. Every other airline gets a broader auto-fill tier that fills in most of your times shortly after you log the flight. Either way, Jetlog is a complete, EASA-format logbook, and manual entry always works.
Live tracking: which airlines
For live-tracked airlines, off-blocks, takeoff, touchdown, on-blocks, and the aircraft registration fill in automatically as the flight progresses, each carrying scheduled, estimated, and actual values. The data comes from the same feed (ACARS) the airline’s own systems use. See Logging your first flight for what those fields mean.
Check Supported Airlines for the current list.
One airport also publishes ramp data (CTOT, TOBT, TSAT), the same slot-management figures ground control works with, for every airline departing it. This applies to departures only, not arrivals or other airports. See Supported Airlines for which airport.
What never reaches you
Live tracking is deliberately narrow: gate, terminal, pier, baggage-belt, and arrival-runway information are never part of it. If it isn’t off-blocks, takeoff, touchdown, on-blocks, ramp timing, or aircraft registration, it isn’t coming through. That’s by design, not a missing feature.
Automatic time filling for every other airline: ADS-B
Fly for an airline that isn’t live-tracked, and Jetlog still fills in your times automatically: off-blocks, takeoff, touchdown, on-blocks, plus aircraft type and registration, drawn from a global ADS-B flight-data network and matched against flights logged around their departure time. It isn’t live, lock-screen tracking (times typically fill in shortly after you log the flight, not the instant each event happens), but it covers the large majority of scheduled airline flights worldwide. It’s included in your subscription, with a generous monthly allotment of look-ups.
Where a flight has both sources, the ACARS report from the aircraft wins over the ADS-B times, though it can arrive a few minutes later.
A few things worth knowing:
- Ferry flights, training flights, and very uncommon or small operators may not find a match.
- Data quality varies by region: busier routes and major carriers match more reliably than a thin regional network.
- Manual entry always works, for any flight this tier doesn’t catch.
A separate feature: roster import
Connect the ICS crew calendar your airline publishes and Jetlog creates and schedules entries from your published roster (useful for planning). It’s not the same as live tracking and doesn’t carry times through mid-flight. Two airlines on the board have a dedicated, purpose-built import (marked on Supported Airlines); for every other airline the ICS import works today and gets better with real rosters. Send a sample to support@jetlog.app. European airlines are prioritized first. See Supported Airlines for the full coverage board.
If times aren’t coming in
Both tiers need the same two things on the entry itself before Jetlog can look anything up:
- A flight number and a route. Matching runs against the flight number, departure airport, and arrival airport you entered, so an entry missing any of those three can’t be matched yet. Fill them in and the next pass can pick it up.
- An airline Jetlog can match. Check Supported Airlines. Live tracking only runs for the airlines listed there, and ADS-B auto-fill, while broader, still needs a recognisable scheduled-airline flight number, not a private or GA registration-only flight.
If both of those are in place and times still haven’t appeared:
- Give it a bit of time. Live tracking updates as the flight progresses; ADS-B auto-fill typically lands shortly after you log the flight, not instantly.
- Check whether the route is one of the coverage gaps mentioned above (a live-tracked airline not tracked from that particular outstation) and enter those legs by hand.
- Ferry flights, training flights, and flights with very small or uncommon operators may simply have no ADS-B match. Manual entry always works.
If none of that explains it, see When times arrive late or look wrong.
Next
See what live tracking looks like on your phone in Live Activities on your lock screen, or read When times arrive late or look wrong for what to do if a time seems off.
