Ever wonder what websites exist to help make your travel experience more seamless? Let’s walk through a few sites for tracking your flights.

Flightradar24

Ever want to understand where your flight actually is? Many airline apps these days provide at least basic tracking details on where planes are at. That’s nice, but what about if you don’t trust the information given? Or maybe you aren’t flying and are waiting for someone to land, but want visible confirmation on where they are?

That’s where flightradar24 can help. While there is a paid version of the site, I just use the free version and find it meets all my needs. Just head over to the website and you’ll see all the planes currently in service. Sometimes it’s cool just to see exactly how many out and about at one time.

See that box in the upper right? If you know the flight you want to view, just type in the flight number.

You’ll then be able to see where it’s currently at and the path it took to get there. Relevant details about when the flight took off and when it is expected to land is also displayed.

If you’re not sure of the flight number, you can just put the route in the search box to see your options.

Tracking your flight history

What if you are at the airport waiting for a flight that hasn’t appeared yet? Well, just look up your flight number and click on the “aircraft info” link.

You’ll then see recent history of where the plane was, where it is now, and what it’s scheduled to fly. This won’t always help you when a plane is late, as airlines can change the aircraft scheduled to operate your flight if it’s super late. But it’s generally pretty reliable. Sometimes I check this to get a sense if my plane is consistently delayed and I’ll know what to expect before the airline tells me I’m delayed.

Lastly, what if you want to track how on-time the flight performed in the last week? You can easily do that with a free account. Just click on the “flight info” to see recent historical performance. This view can be helpful but it obviously doesn’t say what caused the delay (weather, mechanical, or other reasons).

Flight Aware

A similar site for tracking status of planes is Flight Aware. In some ways, you can think of this as choosing the interface you prefer. And, again, I find it sufficient to use the free version.

Enter in your flight number into the search bar and you’ll find a lot of information.

Scroll down a little and you’ll find the map shows weather patterns. That’s pretty useful, especially if you want to see where the ride might be choppy during the flight. And if you’re an AV nerd, you’ll see the altitude listed. I think it’s not all that helpful for most people to know the altitude but it’s there if you’re curious.

The one downside to Flight Aware is that you can’t see the tail number of the aircraft without paying a subscription fee. That makes it less useful for tracking where your plane is at and if it might be delayed. But if you already know the tail number (from flightradar24), it will show the data free of charge. Personally, I feel it’s more difficult to figure out at a glance if past flights were on time or not.

Misery Map and Flight Cancellations

One cool function that Flight Aware has is its “Misery Map” and the “Flight Cancellations” page. Both of these pages tend to get the most use when airlines have major meltdowns where you can easily see how many flights are experiencing issues. Let’s hope you don’t get impacted by the next meltdown.

The “Flight Cancellations” page will show the data summarized in a few ways: by airline, by origin, and by destination. You can easily get a sense from this where the problem is at.

The “Misery Map” just gives a different visualization of the same data. It looks nice, but I prefer looking at numbers myself.

Flight Stats

Let’s say you’re more interested in understanding congestion at an airport? That’s where I feel Flight Stats comes in with a helping hand. Again, I just stick to the free version.

If you go to the “Airport Delays” tab, you can select your airport of interest to find out how it’s performing.

Here, SFO is doing pretty well right now with few delays. That’s not a surprise given low winds and plenty of visibility. It won’t tell you what the conditions will be like in the future, but this can help give a sense of whether a delay might be imminent.

MyTSA (phone app only)

One last useful tool is understanding how long security lines are at each airport. If you’re flying within the United States, consider downloading the MyTSA app (free). While it’s not exactly a tool to track your flight, it’s still useful for your day-of-travel experience.

Once you’re in the app, you can easily enter the airport you want to view to get a sense of how long lines are. If you scroll down just a bit more, you can enter a future time period to see what lines might be like at that time. The one downside is it doesn’t differentiate wait times between those with TSA PreCheck and those without. But I still find it useful.

Did I miss any tools you use to help make your travel experience more predictable?

Suggested reading:

• How to Handle Last Minute Flight Problems
• The Travel Gadgets That Make Our Travel Easy
• How to Book Award Travel Like a Pro