Updates on aviation in the Channel Islands
Updates on aviation in the Channel Islands
CI Aviation investigates how and why a routine Aurigny flight went viral on Flightradar24
On the evening of Monday 25 August, Aurigny’s ATR 72-600 G-ORAI departed Guernsey Airport for Manchester, operating under the callsign AUR78B. By the time the aircraft landed, more than 1.3 million people from across the world had tracked at least part of its journey, making it the most-tracked commercial flight in Flightradar24 history. How did this happen?
As far as we are aware, there was nothing abnormal about this flight or the passengers on board: no celebrities, no VIPs, no footballers. The routing was entirely standard, following a normal path up the centre of England. The only unusual factor was the extraordinary attention it received.
CI Aviation believes what occurred was a positive feedback loop, potentially triggered by the flight appearing at the bottom of Flightradar24’s “most tracked” list. This is not particularly difficult to achieve. At 20:00 on 26/08/25, for example, the 10th most-tracked flight had only around 400 trackers. Many aviation enthusiasts regularly check these lists and will often click on flights out of curiosity. This may have led to the Aurigny service rising rapidly through the rankings.
We believe what happened next was that multiple people began posting online, asking why this flight was being so heavily tracked. That, in turn, led to even more people clicking to follow the flight, which then sparked more posts, which then attracted more trackers. This repeated over and over until the number of people watching peaked at a record-breaking 1.3 million concurrent trackers.
This phenomenon is known as a positive feedback loop, which Wikipedia describes as:
“a process that occurs in a feedback loop where the outcome of a process reinforces the inciting process to build momentum. As such, these forces can exacerbate the effects of a small disturbance.”
In this case, the loop looked a bit like this:
This feedback loop is almost certainly what drove the record-breaking numbers, especially given that large social media accounts which included Flightradar24’s own channels, as well as others such as Airliners Live, highlighted the phenomenon while it was unfolding. Others have speculated though that the huge numbers seen could’ve been as a result of bots tracking the flight too.
Aurigny seemed pleased with the attention. In a press statement released today, the first officer of the flight, Tamer Birsen, said:
“For us, it was just a routine flight. […] To discover afterwards this curious news that over 1 million people had been there watching with us was a real surprise – it’s great to have our 15 minutes of fame! Guernsey is a beautiful place, and it’s definitely well worth a real-world visit.”
The island’s tourism industry also welcomed the unexpected spotlight. Visit Guernsey’s marketing manager, Sam Claxton, commented:
“It’s not every day that Guernsey finds itself in the global spotlight thanks to a routine flight, but we’re thrilled that so many people got a glimpse of our island, even if just virtually. Whether it’s curiosity or coincidence, we hope this sparks journeys to discover our stunning coastline, rich heritage, and warm island hospitality – there’s so much here waiting to be explored, and just a short flight from the UK.”
This flight now stands firmly in Flightradar24’s history books, currently holding the title of the second most-tracked flight ever on the platform, surpassed only by the Royal Air Force flight carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II from Edinburgh to London on 13th September 2022.
Image Credit Flightradar24