Flight Tracker. Part I
30 Sep | Author: Ivan Komarov | Category: Air Travel, Applications, Flight TrackersWhy Flight Tracker?
Most likely, I want to use a flight tracker in one of these three situations:
1) Somebody dear/important is coming to my town/country and I want to know when is the flight landing and when has it taken off (on time, later)?
2) Somebody dear/important has gone to some other town/country and I want to know if he/she has taken off, or has arrived OK, or why he/she is not calling/SMSing.
3) When I am getting ready to pick up someone at the airport and I want to know the status of the flight (i.e. whether it is on time, delayed, or canceled)
4) When I am getting ready to take a plane and I want to know the status of the flight (i.e. is it on time, delayed, or canceled)
5) When I have a connecting flight and I want to know if it is on time or has been delayed.
What Information Do I Want from a Flight Tracker?
Averaging among all these circumstances, I want to know whether the flight…
1) … is scheduled to take off on time – departure time?
2) … is scheduled to take off later – then when?
3) … has taken off – when?
4) … has arrived – when?
5) … is estimated to arrive on time – arrival time?
6) … is estimated to arrive later – when?
And of course, I want to know if everything is OK with the flight (i.e. it is flying en route, is not hijacked, has everything functioning properly, etc).
Also, I may want to know the weather in the departing and arriving locations, the type of aircraft, the percent of departures / arrivals on time…
Do you have to add anything? Please do, as a comment.
Tags: Flight Tracker, Flight Tracking, What Is
October 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I saw a couple of flight tracker websites but I think there is a big problem with their data credibility. This is a matter of where they get arrival, departure etc. (altogether, flight status) information from. I heard it happened that a flight tracker showed Landed status for one particular flight while, in fact, that plane crashed. A service like flight tracker must be very neatly integrated with airport or air company or whatever IT systems to ensure it provides credible information about the flight status. Something like that.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
What is flight tracker anyway?
October 1st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
[...] I want information supplied by the flight tracker to [...]
October 1st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Dear Tom,
To be short: flight tracker is a gadget that helps you with flight information. A more elaborate definition will be given in one of the next posts: I will let you know of the updates.
Ivan
October 1st, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Dear Ian:
You are right. That’s the biggest problem with flight trackers. That’s why I decided to review them, also using your, readers, help.
The next post (FT II) defines criteria which I want to use when evaluating Flight Trackers.
The biggest question of all, seems like, is: Can we have the most reliable flight tracker? Or: what information shall a flight tracker use?