How to Track Airline Flights Online
Did you know that almost any airline flight in the United States may now be tracked in real time over the Internet? Anyone can do it and it is completely free of charge. A website called FlightAware.com allows anyone with access to the Internet to view the current position of any given flight at the click of the mouse. Better yet, you can view the flightpath on a map and even have access to such details as its altitude, speed and estimated time of arrival.
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Instructions
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How to Track an Airline Flight
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Make a note of the airline and flight number of any flight currently in progress. Then go to FlightAware.com (see Resources below for the link) and enter the information in the spaces provided on left side of the screen.
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Click the “Track Commercial Flight” button and you will be taken to a new page with a list of flights in the past three days matching the information you entered.
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Find the correct date of departure on the list (this is normally the first or second entry). If the flight has not yet departed, it will be displayed in italics. If it is en route, or has already arrived, it will be displayed in normal script. Click on the appropriate date to display detailed information on the flight in which you are interested.
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View a new page with a map at the top showing the current position of flight you requested. Additionally, next to the aircraft, you will see a data tag, much like what air-traffic controllers see, containing information such as the flight's current altitude and speed. On the right side of the screen, more detailed information will be displayed, including the exact time of departure, and current estimate for the plane's arrival. Each time you refresh the page the information will be updated with the latest available data.
How to Interpret the Flight Information
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See that the map display shows the aircraft's current position on a map of the United States. The line behind the aircraft shows the aircraft's flightpath going all the way back to the point of origin.
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Know that the “data tags” on the map are similar in style to what an air traffic controller sees on her radar screen, and use the same conventional abbreviations. The top line includes the flight number and the aircraft type. For example: DAL1080 B752 refers to Delta Airlines Flight #1080, and the aircraft type is a Boeing 757-200. The middle-line includes the current altitude in hundreds of feet, and speed in knots (nautical miles per hour). The altitude is always first and the speed is always second. For example: 218^ 413 means that the aircraft is currently at 21,800 feet and climbing. The current speed is 413 knots. The bottom line includes the standard ICAO codes for the departure and destination airports.
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Be aware that the departure and arrival times shown are the times of takeoff and landing, rather than the time of departure or arrival at the gate.
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Tips & Warnings
The current position of a flight is shown with a short delay, typically of five to six minutes. Therefore, for example, the service cannot be used to predict when a flight will pass over your house, even if you know that you are along the flightpath.
If you are an aviation buff, feel free to experiment. FlightAware can be used to view all of the traffic at a given airport, a particular region, or of a given airline. You can even call up a map showing all the airtraffic in the whole country.
The service works by using software to compile information that is already publicly available. It is completely legal, and is not considered to be a violation of of anyone's privacy.
The map display on FlightAware is not a radar display and the software is not accurate or reliable enough to be used for detecting collisions, crashes, near-misses or deviations from published the flightpan. If you see something that looks suspicious, you are most likely seeing a glitch in the system. Please do not contact the authorities (see the FlightAware's FAQ). If something is wrong, Air Traffic Control will spot it long before you do.
