Top 5 Flight Trackers: a review
03 Oct | Author: Ivan Komarov | Category: Applications, Flight Trackers, Internet, Travel Apps
I thought of dissecting all review sites. However, I could find only 2 such sites — which reviewed flight trackers. They are good (up to one’s criteria, of course) so I will use them as a starting point.
I have also used information presented in the next (upper) post. It’s focused only on mobile flight trackers.
In this post, I am reviewing different flight trackers. I have also chosen the best 5.
My Top 5 Flight Trackers list is the following:
- FlightStats.com
- FlyteComm.com
- FBOWeb.com
- FlightAssist.com
- OAG STAR Alliance
To compile the rating, I used this source. It’s called “MAKE USE OF” and it reviews the following flight trackers.
They call it the “mother” of all flight tracker sites. Well, the list of features is indeed impressive:
-departure time
-estimated arrival time
-progress bar
-automatically updating map
-integration with Google Earth
-real time updating with the flight’s location and altitude coordinates
-Air Traffic Control (ATC) live audio feeds
Major problem: only tailored to the US, including airspace. Meaning: when tracking even a US originated flight like Aeroflot’s 316 from JFK you get “This flight is currently being tracked by London, UK radar facilities, and is restricted” (i.e. it is flying overseas). Oh-oh.
This service also require subscription (for some features). The second source, searchenginewatch.com, also points to this source, for its Google Earth integration.
I think it is the father of tracking sites because even Google uses it for its information about “flight SU316″-like searches.
It also has widgets, facebook applications, and RSS feeds for airport delays.
It also supplies an “information-delayed-by” time which is a nice and rare feature. And estimated times of.. even departure! (Even though my test’s SU316 is scheduled to take off only 14 hours later, I see that it is scheduled for 1/2 hour later departure that’s probably true. A build-in lateness? JFK has to adjust schedules!)
Also the coverage is claimed to be the best in the world: “We cover more commercial passenger flights than anyone in the world. In addition to our complete coverage of North American flights, we cover flights operating in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and just about everywhere else.”
Feels like I would put this source in the first place. What do you think? Vote in this post!
Well, information on local flights looks complete (at least for Novosibirsk, Russia). Moreover, tracking flights by date (that I could not initiate on FBOWeb.com) is helpful since many transatlantic flight fly into the other day.
Lets you search for flights by airline and flight number or by city and time. Be sure to check out the airport traffic map which shows flights going into and out of major U.S. cities.
Even though it is mentioned by the two reviewers, I could not find any interesting specifics. US only.
offers flight tracking, data analysis, statistics, and graphs, mobile access and a ton of other features. Impressive! Mentioned by the two reviewers.
More of the same variety. Also mentioned by the two. Different by the user interface.
Now, it is all good. But most of the reviewed sites are online (web) trackers. What if the cable is down, computer does not boot or you are in a taxicab? Remember my requirements? Well, I think mobile access (and not only from iPhone or SmartPhone!) is a MUST-HAVE. What is out there in terms of mobile support? My colleague has helped me with the mobile tracker list which is in the next (upper) post.
Here I will review two mobile trackers: OAG STAR Alliance and FlightAssist.
OAG Star Alliance will send SMS alerts if the schedule has changed or so did the departure/arrival estimated times. The service is free. But it only covers STAR Alliance airlines. Therefore, my test with Aeroflot fails.
FlightAssist offers SMS (cell phone text) notifications about arrival/departure, status confirmation, reminders and alerts if something has changed (estimated arrival/departure times) around the world. The cost is .99 cents per alert. Didn’t try it but looks good!
By the way, as always, similar information can be found on the airport’s and/or the airline’s websites (also with mobile capabilities).
UPDATE:
http://www.flightarrivals.com/ – something new, I guess, beta status, but failed S7 Airlines test
http://www.flightexplorer.com – a desktop app; US, Canada or New Zealand; failed S7 Airlines test.
Tags: Applications, apps, best flight trackers, flight status, Flight Tracker, rating, review, star alliance, TOP 5, web services
October 4th, 2008 at 1:57 am
I’ve been using flight assist for almost a year now and I love it when I get alerts on gate changes and delays on my phone even BEFORE the gate agent announces the problem to the waiting passengers in the boarding area. I often tell other folks in the lounge that the flight will be delayed and sure enough within 5-10 minutes the gate agent shares the bad news. I also have flightassist text message my girlfriend so she knows when my flight lands and can pick me up without having to continually check the airline’s website. This product is soooo cool. I totally recommend it to everyone. I absolutely would not travel without it. P.T.
October 4th, 2008 at 2:22 am
The 99 cent fee is for the entire flight. If there are lots of changes I will get many alerts from flightassist but I don’t have to pay any more than just the one .99 fee. The .99 charge gets added to my phone bill so each month I can look at my Sprint bill and if I see $3 for Flightassist then it means I traveled 3 times that month. P.T.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Flightassist is a good service
October 6th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
[...] from StarAlliance use a OAG service to send SMS alerts to you and other specified parties if there is a significant [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 3:40 am
I rely on Flightassist and have incorporated it into my flight arrangement process. It has saved me from missing my flight on at least two occasions.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
This is just to add that searching http://delicious.com for ‘flight tracker’ returns the same Top 5 sites plus http://www.aeroseek.com, which tracks 21 airlines. Have no idea, what is the difference between those flight tracking web-applications though.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
[...] has suggested that Aeroseek is a tracker worth looking at. Well, its “own” tracker works for these [...]
March 18th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
[...] Top 5 (Web) Flight Trackers [...]
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:52 am
Try flightaware.com, great info with maps, work on smartphones too.