Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Let’s be real – airlines can deliver some pretty disappointing app experiences. Some have better. Give the major owners to United, but sometimes you have to look elsewhere. And that’s where Flighty comes in – not only is it a great name for an app, but it’s been on my home screen for years, and I’ve been a paid subscriber.
It is, period, the best app to track flights, and it goes for traveling for pleasure or work or if you need to track the flight of a family or friend. It has a modern interface that is beautiful and easy to navigate, provides much more details about what is happening with your flight than the airlines, and can even predict delays or warn about potential problems.
Home screen heroes
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring the apps we can’t live without. Read them all here.
Flighty is also super simple to get started; once downloaded, you can do a Calendar Synchronization, which automatically imports future, current or even historical flights. This way, the app screen will show all your flight plans.
Tapping on a flight quickly shows the power of the app. You can see the departure and arrival times shared by the airlines, but when you zoom in, you’ll also see the expected times, and by scrolling, you’ll see details about your plane. These details include the tail number – something that usually costs extra on a service like FlightRadar – and also when the aircraft was first introduced, which is even neater for an aircraft buff!
Perhaps the most important, however, is the history of the road. Flighty will show how many of the flights are observed and what percentage of those that arrived early, on time, were delayed or canceled. This can be very beneficial, especially if you are discussing changing to an earlier or later flight.
If you pay for Flighty, you also get delay forecasts, which can be invaluable. This goes back to the most important idea of communication: airlines do not predict delays, because they just want everything to be on time for everyone. Unfortunately, that’s not the case…especially in the congested airspace of the northeastern United States, which is known for delays during the summer storm season. It can be a mess, but Flighty can help you predict if a ground stop may cause delays or if your inbound plane is held a little longer for departure.
The app uses custom AI to help predict these events and ultimately tries to be upfront and honest. It is really useful and has real-time updates, such as the notice of delays on the ground in Newark or San Francisco, which could cause a delay of more than 15 minutes in your departure. Also, if there is ever a change of plane or a delay published – in my experience – Flighty updates long before the airline. That can be quite important, especially if the location of your post is critical.
Now, when it comes to the actual day of the flight, you will have a Live Activity appear on the iPhone. Flighty was one of the first, and Apple also presented for implementation – both the lock screen and the Dynamic Island. It will tell you where your incoming flight is, how many hours before departure, and even where you are flying. Generally, it will notify you of your baggage claim before you even get to the gate, and the flight map is pretty neat.
But here’s the best part – you don’t have to pay for Wi-Fi for live updates while you’re in the air. Flighty works on the free messaging Wi-Fi that many airlines offer. This way, you can track your flight, see where you are, and feel more confident when you leave the plane and venture into the airport.
In simple terms, Flighty can help calm the anxiety of air travel and in the end it is a useful and fun app that has earned a place on my home page, and I think it deserves to be on yours. a frequent or more infrequent. traveler It gives you extra knowledge about your trip and can help you feel more comfortable on your flight.
In addition, it records your travel history, so at the end of the year – like Spotify Wrapped – you have your Flighty summary, which not only boasts a fantastic annual design, but can leave the aircraft nerd in you geek out. Have you ever wondered how many hours you’ve been running late? What is your most frequented plane or airline? Where do you like to sit the most? Flighty records everything.
In addition, there are sharing functions, so whether you usually monitor the travels of a friend or a visiting friend, you can choose to share your Flighty with friends and receive notifications of other people’s flight updates.
If you want all the features and even some that you could argue are more basic, you need to pay, but I think it’s worth it… especially for the AI predictions for the delays alone. The best bang for the buck is $47.99 for the year and you get all the features or pay $249 one time to unlock all the features or weekly at $3.99 (don’t get the story but that’s awesome to travel). Live activity, delay alerts, full import, weather, where’s my plane, and most of the good stuff is paid for. However, even on the free plan, you get the basic alerts.
Download Flighty on iOS. It is not yet available on Android
