- DeutschDE
- English
An airline never flies alone: it departs from an airport, uses aircraft from certain manufacturers, often belongs to an airline group and is a member of an alliance. This database sorts out exactly these levels – plus the museums where yesterday’s classics are on display.
293
Entries
5
Categories
25
Countries
The categories differ in the role the organization plays in aviation – and therefore in where and how you come across it while spotting.
Airports
Commercial airports with their runways, terminals and visitor areas – from major hubs to regional airports.
181 entries →
Aircraft manufacturers
Companies that design and build airliners, regional jets and helicopters – with their final assembly lines, factory airfields and type families.
42 entries →
Airline groups
Corporate groups with several airlines flying under one roof, such as Lufthansa Group, IAG or Air France-KLM. The groups themselves rarely show up – their airlines are everywhere.
18 entries →
Airline alliances
Partnerships of airlines such as Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam that link networks, lounges and frequent flyer programs.
3 entries →
Aviation museums
Museums, collections and visitor centers that display historic and retired aircraft.
49 entries →
Aircraft, airline, airport and spot in a single post – and everything ends up in your hangar instead of on scraps of paper. Planetrack is launching soon – join the waitlist and get early access.
Behind many well-known airlines stands the same handful of groups – just under different brands.
Lufthansa Group
Lufthansa Group is not an airline but a group with a dozen operating carriers – from Lufthansa to SWISS and Austrian to Eurowings and ITA Airways. If you only look for the crane at the fence, you miss half the group.
1 linked page
Airline groupAbra Group
Since 2022, the Abra Group has brought Colombia’s Avianca and Brazil’s GOL under one roof – two airlines, two fleet worlds, two colors. Here is how the group is organized and how to recognize its aircraft.
Airline groupAeroflot Group
Three airlines, one state-owned group: Aeroflot, Rossiya and Pobeda make up Russia’s largest airline group. Since 2022, none of them flies to the EU anymore – to see them, you have to go to Turkey, the Gulf or your photo archive.
Airline groupAir France-KLM
Air France-KLM is a French-Dutch group with two network airlines, two Transavia operations and its own regional subsidiaries. If you only look for blue-white-red or KLM blue at the fence, you miss half the group.
Airline groupAir India Group
From Tata’s founding in 1932 through almost 70 years of state ownership and back to Tata: today the Air India Group bundles Air India as the network airline and Air India Express as the low-cost brand – and rebuilds its fleet with one of the largest aircraft orders in history.
Airline groupAlaska Air Group
Since 2024, Alaska Air Group has brought Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines under one roof, along with regional subsidiary Horizon Air. Two brands, one operating certificate and, since 2026, one shared code – for spotters, telling them apart now comes down to the details.
Almost every mix-up in sighting lists happens because these levels get muddled. They really are different things.
It belongs to the marketing airline. With codeshares, the same flight carries several flight numbers from different carriers.
The carrier with the operating license and the crew. In a wet lease, that’s a different airline from the one whose name is on the ticket.
The registration identifies exactly one aircraft, and its prefix reveals the country of registration – the information you’re actually after.
The group that owns the airline and the alliance it belongs to. They explain why aircraft, routes and lounges are shared.
Always note the aircraft’s registration – not just the airline or the flight number. Only the registration is unique. You’ll find the type and airline in the aircraft types and the airline database.
The IATA code has three letters and is what you see on tickets, departure boards and baggage tags – FRA for Frankfurt, for example. The ICAO code has four letters, is used in flight plans, weather reports and radio communication, and its first letter reveals the region – EDDF for Frankfurt, for example. For sightings, the ICAO code is less ambiguous.
Because the flight number on the ticket often belongs to a codeshare partner, while another carrier actually operates the flight. Then there are wet-lease flights, where one airline leases an aircraft including crew from another. What counts for the sighting is the registration on the fuselage – it always belongs to exactly one aircraft.
A partnership of airlines that link their networks, share lounges and recognize each other’s miles. The three big alliances are Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam. Interesting for spotters: some members wear special liveries in their alliance’s design.
A corporate group with several independent airlines flying under one roof – for example Lufthansa Group, IAG or Air France-KLM. The aircraft almost never shows the group name, but the individual airline. The group does explain, though, why aircraft and routes move between its subsidiaries.
Because they determine what’s flying in the sky. You can almost always place an aircraft by its manufacturer family first – by cockpit windows, fuselage shape, engines and wingtips. You’ll find the individual models in the aircraft types.
Note the aircraft’s registration, the aircraft type, the airline and the airport, date and time. In the Planetrack app you post it as an entry with a photo – you add details such as a special livery, the runway or takeoff and landing, and the camera data comes from the photo.
The other databases
Note: owners, shareholdings, alliance memberships and airport expansions change all the time. Confirmed details are in the profile on each page; anything that may change with a restructuring or an expansion is marked as such.