While searching the web on the flight tracking topic, I came across this article from New York Times. Citation:

“…when a storm shut down Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last [on] Dec. 29 [, 2006], forcing American Airlines to divert 130 planes to other airports in the region, what high-tech system came into play at the world’s largest airline?

“A legal pad,” said Don Dillman, managing director of American’s operations center here, where dispatchers direct flights around the world…”

Wait! A legal pad? The article goes on assuring that now there is some nice flight diverting software. However, with all the aviation cuts, it seems very probably that one can find him/her self stranded soemwhere whilst your beloved ones are worrying not having infromation about your whereabouts!

What tracker would track in these circumstances?

Someone has suggested that Aeroseek is a tracker worth looking at. Well, its “own” tracker works for these airlines only:

There is also a limited number of airports tracked. And the service is in beta testing. Source data is apparently from http://www.airnavsystems.com/

The other two trackers on the site are the ones I have in my TOP 5 flight tracker list: fboweb, and flightstats.com.

There is a number of services that communicate with you via mobile phone, sending updates about the flight of your choice.

Airlines from StarAlliance use a OAG service to send SMS alerts to you and other specified parties if there is a significant change to the flight. Learn/start here.

There is also a OAG Flights2GO service which comes at about $120 price and offers a whole bunch of things like flights lookup and real-time info. It works through the Internet or WAP. Decide for yourself if you want to use it. As for me, I choose SMS delivery.

FlightAssist.com of CellTrust offers SMS notifications about your flight and also about plane landing/taking-off, delivered to the specified mobile phone numbers. Subscription to FlightAssist costs $0,99–2 per flight depending on the number of alerts/reminders. Parties to receive alerts have to pay for notifications too. It is better to check with http://flightassist.com/faq.aspx#3 about pricing – it’s complicated!

US residents can use Google which sends flight updates to your mobile (the service is provided via FlightStats.com). GOOGLE is accessible in the US by texting to the number 466453 (GOOGLE). The service is FREE (well, some US operators charge for outgoing and incoming SMS!). Send your fight info (like “UA 111″) or airline’s name (“United”) to get either flight or airline information.

http://4info.net/howto/flights.jsp offers the same (for the US) through the number 4info (44636).

And, as I have mentioned, flightstats.com supplies its info for Google and for m.yahoo.com so when you mobile search through Google or Yahoo you get flight stats flight info. FlightStats offers notification through some cell phone providers (service requires registration). Thus you can receive notifications on your cell phone if you have your provider in their list:

UK residents can use AirText at http://www.airtext.co.uk/ to get info for flights originated/terminated in the UK via SMS.

There is also a UK/worldwide service (requires registration and receiving ads) – http://www.streamthru.com. However, being in Russia (or in the US for that matter) I could not register for the service because of the postal code field which apparently wants the UK code!

Some airports/airlines also offer SMS notifications (I have heard that of the UK, Israel, Czech, and Russia).

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.

* FBOWeb.com

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.

* FlightStats.com

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.

* FlightView.com

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.

* FlightAware.com

offers flight tracking, data analysis, statistics, and graphs, mobile access and a ton of other features. Impressive! Mentioned by the two reviewers.

* FlyteComm.com

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.

Information Requirements

Obviously, I want information supplied by the flight tracker to be:

1) Accurate
That is there are no mistakes regarding times (including mistakes with time zones, summer/winter time change, 24/12 hour format, day+1 etc.), flight status, and other information.

2) Up-to-date
We need real-time tracking and automatic updates.

3) Full
Would be great to have all the required information in one place.

4) Easy to find
Maximum simplicity for finding the most needed information (status, times).

5) Easy to get
Even though it is easy to find, it may not be easy to access and receive — that is to view, save, and have it updated.

6) Accessible from any place
What if you need to look up the info in a taxi on your way to the airport?

7) Accessible any time
This can be a redundant requirement if 6) is valid. But it still needs checking especially regarding upgrades to the service and its reliability.

8) Accessible from any medium
It means access from:

• the Internet
• a phone call
• a mobile service (SMS/USSD/WAP etc.)